


Metempsychosis

by deserts



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Earth C (Homestuck), Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Mild Gore, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2019-10-13 23:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deserts/pseuds/deserts
Summary: It’s mid-August the first time you see him, standing in front of the Maid’s temple, staring at you like he’s carved out of stone.-A reincarnated version of a dude who died, once upon a time, lives his life in New Houston, haunted by a ghost that may be a god. He has no friends.





	1. verge escapement

**Author's Note:**

> Don't look at me no I'm not avoiding responsibility no I don't have better things to be doing shut up!!  
> This is a side project so who knows when or if I will update it while working on the run n go so!! Do not @ me this IS bro strider propaganda  
> I really like the idea of kids being like. Celebrated as actual Gods year and years past the end of the game. With all sorts of mythos and shit surrounding them and! Yes!

Here is what you dream: burning sulfur, singeing your nose hair. Your heart slamming in your ears, beating wildly in your chest in 4/4 time. A feeling of urgency, sweat on your palms. The stench of gasoline, green fire against your neck, barking dogs. Snarling teeth, Searing pain. Choking, drowning, something hot bubbling from your lips. Bright red blood.

The images are abstract, like a mosaic taken from your memories, broken and put back together in a way that doesn’t make sense. The wrong order, upside down. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope, but all you can see is a hand and a leg belonging to two different people.

You toss and you turn and sleep poorly, wake up, go back to sleep, and do it all over again.

Despite the bad dreams, you spend most of your spare time sleeping. Between commissions, work, gigs and the people in between, you don’t get a lot of free time.

What you do get, you covet, and not even the psionic next door blowing a fuse again is enough to disturb you. There are upsides to this (being asleep, not having to deal with shit, pretending to be dead), but there are also downsides; when you sleep, you dream. And when you dream, there are the nightmares again.

Maybe you’re depressed, you think, dozing on the couch again. You watch your hand rest on the carpet, trace the callouses of your palm, think it’d make sense if you had a way to hide them. Maybe you’re a masochist. Maybe you’re in love with your own sadness.

  
Someone kicks you in the head.

_Wake up._

Kick, kick.

_You’re not an animal, you have a fucking bed, go sleep in it._

_“You’re not the boss of me,”_ you think, but you jolt upright on the floor with a headache like you got hit by a freight train.

Your name is Dirk Strider, but people you like call you "bro", because that's what you are. A bro. You're the epitome of cool, the chillest of dudes, and you live in a one bedroom apartment on the top floor of an overpriced building in New Houston. You are thirty-two years young, it's Tuesday, July 17th, and you’re soaked in sweat.

It’s Tuesday, July 17th, and you’re soaked in sweat by the time you reach the store where you buy all your fabric. Your poor truck is still in the shop and you've been too busy to work on her, definitely wouldn't let the other kids touch it with a ten foot pole. You could've taken the bus but really, the shop ain't too far from your place, and you didn't know it would get so fucking hot. Oh well. Most of your original product was scrap and discount, but since you raised the price you’ve been able to afford the premium shit, and you browse their selection with a critical eye and a careful hand. You don’t want to get accused of stealing. Again.

You’re a little bit cursed that way, always have been. You used to get yelled at for all sorts of shit, from hijacking cars you just barely walked by, to something as simple as stealing someone else’s gum. Your teenage years were hell, your mid-twenties were worse. You are learning to live in your self-imposed isolation and truth be told, you like it better this way.

You’re not much of a people person.

You spend longer than necessary staring at all the different patterns, neatly wrapped in their cellophane. It’s 105 outside and barely past two, and you are not excited to get back out there. You grab a pack of neon green and Candlenights red, and think about fire again, singeing your arm hair, think about blood damp on the front of your shirt. A headache starts to burn behind your eyes.

You have a feeling it’s gonna be a long fucking day.

  
You miss the bus (of course), so you take the long way home, past the river and the Maid’s temple, where you can slink along in the minimal amounts of shade provided by tall buildings, a momentary reprieve from the hellish humidity that hugs you like a particularly unwelcome blanket. There are flowers lining the neat stone paths on all sides, blooming despite the summer heat, though their stems are beginning to droop and you know they’ll soon perish in the southern heat.

You consider dipping inside to escape the sun for just a bit longer, wonder if felt is an acceptable gift for the goddess of Life. You’ve always been fond of the old gal, the imagery of her with a mother’s gaze and a soft, humanly crooked smile.

A train of followers, draped in beige and green, pass you in a line like a bunching of amusing trees. The last one holds the door open for you, gives you a smile that is polite, but kind. You’d look like a real jackass to walk away right now, you think.

Still, your feet move you forward on the pavement, and you don’t look back at that lonely follower, and imagine that the heat on your ears is the burn of shame, instead of the sun.

You consider the irony of a Life temple in a place where things come to die, walking along the wilted flower path. The followers are devote, the sermons (you hear) are usually full up most days. Still, it’s not as big as most, since the Knight is the patron god of New Houston. The flowers can’t possibly survive their intended life span, and the follower count must drop yearly. You’ve heard the temple in Sealight is huge, though. Maybe when you make it large, you’ll send them a truck full of fertilizer. You guess? That’d probably help, right?

You stutter at the edge of the sidewalk three blocks away, feel the pull in your chest like something’s lodged there. An indiscernible feeling of foreboding for what lies ahead.

In contrast to the Maid’s temples, the temples of the Knight are almost impossible to miss. Huge, hulking structures that reach into the sky, steel and marbled granite that leak with crimson banners and blood red rust. The symbol for Time, the ten-pronged gear, sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the city, and you hesitate there at the intersection, consider taking your usual path a few blocks around it. You pass them every day. You never go in.

A longer life has never been your destiny, anyway.

 

It’s mid-August the first time you see him, standing in front of the Maid’s temple, staring at you like he’s carved out of stone. At first you think you’re imagining things, a spectre draped in red, posed stock still in the middle of a sea of brown and green. But someone ducks around him and sends the cape behind him billowing, and you know you can’t be dreaming. His hair is pale, pale blonde and when his glasses catch the light, you realize he looks familiar.

He must be a performer, you think, a little hysterical. The Time temple is only a few blocks up, maybe he got lost.

So why is he staring at you?

You look back and think, _damn, they really go all out for Time ceremonies, huh?_

Someone jostles you, or a car passes, or you blink too long, and then he’s just gone.

And that’s the end of that, you guess.

 

You don’t think about him until a week later.

You sit uncomfortable on a chair in front of the cigarette cabinet, foot jittering so hard it shakes your entire body.

It’s not your favorite thing, getting called in early (if you can call eleven pm early, which you uniquely can) to have a “talk” with your manager, who carries the morning shift most days.

“Your eyes are scaring the customers,” he explains nervously, the way most carapacians are nervous around you. You can’t blame them, really, when you’re taller than half of them by at least a foot. Explains the chair, anyway.

The bell dings above the door, but he doesn’t even turn his head to check. “You are a very good worker, Mr. Strider,” he says gently, touching your arm after a long hesitation. “It’s just...”

You nod. Here it comes. You’re used to it, and at this point you’re surprised if you last longer than three months anywhere. It’s fine, you can find another job, something that works with your whack-ass sleep schedule and side-work.

But instead, he gives you a little pat. Pat, pat. “Perhaps we should stick you to the night shift for now.”

You’d hug the little fucker if you weren’t afraid you could literally crush him to death. Instead, you give the closest approximation to a smile you possibly can. “Thanks, Mr. Manager. I appreciate it a lot.”

His eyes crinkle up in the corners in a way you are certain means a big smile, and he goes to help the customer, leaving you to stare at the alcohol cabinet for just a minute longer.

Take a shaky breath. Rake a hand down your face. That was close. Too close. It’s not like you’re not used to getting fired, at this point (though you don’t know why, you don’t get it, you didn’t  _do_ anything -), but you’re really damn tired of the job hopping.

“Thank you so much!” Mr. Manager says, chipper as always, and you look up to see a kid, staring at you over your manager’s shoulder.

Pale, pale blonde hair hangs over shaded eyes that look right through you. He’s dressed in all red and you know, heartbeat picking up, that it’s him. Your eyes start to burn, and your head feels fuzzy.

He grabs a bag of Doritos and an apple juice off the counter and walks away quick as lightning, turns around the corner of the condiment dispenser, and is gone.

 _"Huh,"_ you think. That was weird.

There are a pair of sunglasses left behind with a receipt, and you gingerly pick them up. Should you follow him? He has shades, right? Why the fuck did he buy a second pair?

Your manager doesn't seem all that bothered, getting ready to leave, and mystified, you set them next to the liquor cabinet. Just in case he comes back, or.

Or you don't know.

  
You dream in shades of sepia that night, dream you're lying on your back staring up at dirt-brown clouds that flicker with stars, but they can't be stars, because they're beneath the clouds, because they're moving. Your chest hurts but you can't move to see what's wrong, arms too heavy and fingers long gone numb.

_Stop sleeping on the fucking floor, dude. C'mon, what's so scary about one little bedroom?_

_"It's not my room,"_ you think, or say, or don't, and you and shoot upright choking on spit, hands scrambling for purchase on the still cool floor. Something bumps against your fingers and you flinch where no one can see, acknowledge you're being ridiculous, and squint half-asleep at a pair of brown-toned sunglasses barebmillimeters away.

Huh.

You're pretty sure you left those at the convenience store, but what do you know? Maybe you had shoved them in your pocket without thinking when you grabbed your keys. Whatever, you'll take them back with you tonight.

You stand, groaning as your back pops in seven uncomfortable places. You're not old, far from it, but sometimes your bones creak and ache and you feel like you've inhabited this skin for a long, long time.

 

You are tired, beyond tired, two days after returning the sunglasses to their home at the convenience store. You haven't slept in a hot minute and you're definitely taking it out on the engine, which despite your best efforts will not quite jump to life. You don't know why. Just bad luck, you guess. Go figure. The lights in the garage sting at your tired eyes and you wish, you do, for any appropriate eyewear, but you know it won't possibly survive the absolutely beat down it would take on a busy day at the shop.

You finally make some progress around seven pm, get the truck started long enough for it to cough a little smoke, which is a helluva improvement, before taking a break. You probably need a nap, honestly, but you'll settle for some coffee and an aspirin.

Wow, you sound like an old fucking woman.

You're not technically allowed in the back office, since you're not an actual employee, but you've been here long enough that they never stop you, never have, even when you were working under the table. You turn the lights off and flop into the overstuffed rolling chair, wheel over to the desk so you can lay your head on your arms for awhile.

The dreams have been getting worse. You want to say maybe they're not, maybe they're not that bad, you never remember everything anyway, maybe you're not processing trauma properly and your brain is coping by ripping you to shreds in your sleep. It hasn't always been like this, you think. But it's been so long you can't really remember what it was like before.

You roll your head so that you can press your eyes harder into your arm and drum your fingers against the table. You can't sleep here. Well you could. They'd think you were weird (most people do) when they came back in the morning and you were still here, since you promised to lock up and be out by ten (gig, tonight, and then work again, tomorrow). But you think the big guy would get it. You were one of his best workers, once. Ugh. Maybe you should ditch the side jobs and come back, after all.

You drag yourself up with too much effort, exhaustion heavy on your slanting shoulders. You should go home. Get a couple'a hours, or setup tonight will be hell. You lock the office back up, grab your keys and cigs from the front seat, and leave through the side door so you can stand next to the fans a little bit longer while you finish off a smoke.

You find them when you grope around for your lighter, and dragging a pair of sunglasses out of your ass pocket has never felt more like a magic trick. What the actual fuck.

Maybe you - maybe you found them in the office, maybe they're an old pair you didn't remember leaving in your pants. The lenses are sepia and shiny new and you think you know what? Fuck it. You're not a curious person (not anymore, no reason to be, really, not anymore), and you don't have time for magic, or not magic, or whatever this is. Free glasses. Fine. Whatever.

Gods, you're so fucking tired.

  
This is stupid. You look stupid.

It’s all you can think, looking in the bathroom mirror. They don’t match your face, and you think you look kind of like a douchebag. Rounded glasses don’t suit you.

But despite this, despite the ugly sepia tone, the tacky gold rims, and how WRONG it feels, your vision has never been better. Your walk to work is almost pleasant in comparison to the past. It's like the world's come into focus, everything is crystal clear, and you do not squint in the glaring sun. You never realized how bright New Houston was without them, and you think your eyes might just pass as brown like this. That's. Certainly something, you guess.

 

_Wake up._

A toe at your temple, nudging your brow.

_Wake up, you forgot the pay the electricity bill, idiot._

Nudge, nudge.

_C’mon, Bro, I’m dying in here. Wake up!_

You jolt upright with a migraine like you’ve been kicked in the head by a horse and think you should lay off the adderall for a little while. Maybe just lay off the night gig thing for awhile, in general. It’s not that you don’t deserve a proper prescription (you desperately, desperately do), but goddamn, you think it might legitimately be fucking with your head.

You peel yourself off the floor (again), and realize your apartment is sweltering.

“Fuck,” you mutter, wiping your face with your shirt.

You forgot to pay the electricity bill again.

You shower in the dark and style your hair the best you can with your phone light before just saying fuck it and wedging a hat over it. You can fix it later. The royal ass-kicking you’re about to give the public utility department schmucks waits for no man.

The bus ride is completely uninteresting. You scoot over to make room for a Jadeblood no doubt on her way home from the East End brooding caverns, and she gives you a smile of thanks and not an ounce of anything else. Just the way you like it.

  
The verbal lashing will, no doubt, be remembered for years to come. How the fuck are you supposed to keep track if a month has a thirty-first or not? It should be due at the same damn interval. Idiots.

You’re considering switching to automatic payments, credit card security be damned, as you cross the plaza in the morning swelter. You watch your bus leave without you while you brood, and think yeah, okay. Fine.

You can wait for the next one out here, hiding in the tiny glass hut with no sun protection but you’d just rather fucking not.

You weigh your options and come up with two bad ideas. You could go back inside, face the shame of having just made the biggest Texas hullabaloo in all of history, or you can head to the Knight’s Temple across the green.

You’re not really in the mood to be a laughing stock, so you man the fuck up, grit your jaw, and head on over.

This is, if you remember correctly, the oldest Time temple in New Houston. It was built back with the other municipal buildings, so it favors foreign influence over the more modern towering structures throughout most of the city. This one is so old it has marbled statues of the Guardians outside, paint chipping away and revealing the white stone beneath. The humanoid Hephaestus stands before the temple like a soldier, hammer in hand, face set in a grimace. The other, less important deities in Time scripture surround him. The sea serpent Cetus, the tyrant Typheus. You remember some of them from school. Echidna, the mother of monsters, who apparently had a hand in the creation of the universe. You’re not sure if you believe that.

You smooth a hand over the serpentine form of the lion-faced guardian. Yaldabaoth, you remember. God of all monsters. He belonged to the hero of Heart, insomuch as they belonged to anyone. It’s a neat story, you think. An interesting concept, even if it's all made up.

The inside of the building is cool and dark, still relying on the beams of light trickling in from stained glass windows. You tuck your new shades in your shirt collar and wander towards the inner chamber, listen to the echo of your footsteps and the hushed whispers of the devout, further down the halls.

You’ve been inside a Time hall before, back when you were little. It had been raining, you think, and you had gotten lost taking the bus for the first time. You ended up on the opposite side of town, in the small hive collective where most of Odessa’s troll population lived. The temple stood out because of its shape, tall but rounded, unlike anything you’d ever seen before. You remember hunkering under a pew, remember mosaics of crystalline glass, and music like bells. An adolescent troll had found you, her horns curved like a ram’s, her lips painted like cherries. Her eyes, specked dark wine red on pavement grey, shone in the light, reflected something that made her feel like a dream.

“You’re lost,” she had said, simple as anything, and when she reached out her hand, you took it. You don’t remember going home. You don’t remember a lot of things from those days.

This is, however, your first time in a temple of the Knight, and while the red banners are familiar, the depictions of oozing lava, of broken metal and shattered glass, are not.

This is a violent place, you think, looking at a wall mosaic. You trace a finger over the cool stone and think hot metal, the sound of creaking gears, heat rising from the ground like you’ve never felt before. Shirt sticking to your skin, the taste of copper on your tongue.

You shudder, suddenly burning hot and freezing cold all at once, and step away from the walls. A small group of consorts waddle past and you think of crocodiles emblazoned in amber. A wave of nausea rolls over you that you can’t explain.

“It’s wild, isn’t it?” a voice says just to your left, and you do flinch this time, full body, hand twitching like you’re reaching for a weapon you don’t have.

And there’s no mistaking it this time, the kid from before. He’s older than you thought, seeing him this close now, jaw rounded but not with babyfat, long and rail thin the same way you probably were at his age. Whatever his age is. It’s hard to tell with those giant sunglasses covering his stupid face. He kinda looks like a douchebag. Quite the pair the two of you make.

“What,” you say, even though you feel like you shouldn’t. What you should do is walk away. Walk away, your brain says. Your heart throbs in your ears. Walk away.

You don’t.

He raises an eyebrow, thicker and darker than you thought it would be, and gestures around himself. “This. All this. The walls, the statues. Hell, even the fucking floor. It’s ridiculous.” He’s got the ghost of an accent clinging to the corners of his words, like he’s been away from home too long, but you’d recognize a traditional Texan drawl from a mile away.

He’s also not entirely wrong. You look down at the hall, iron red granite, and think about running blood. Gods, this whole place feels like a fucking tomb.

“You can say that again,” he says around a sigh, and you carefully do not mention how you don’t remember speaking.

You want to ask him if he’s following you. You want to ask why he looks so familiar. But the way you can’t quite see around his shades, how he holds himself away from you so that even reaching out, you wouldn’t quite touch, you get the impression you aren’t welcome.

So instead you say, “I think I’d prefer less red. Reminds me too much of blood.”

His hums, regards the mosaic. Abstract lava flows from pipes into an ocean of orange and yellow, scattered metal framework littering the background like an oil rig. “It doesn’t feel like it happened this way,” he says to you. “Like this is our idea of what things looked like on. On Earth. Or something.” He hesitated. You’re intrigued.

You don’t remember all the scriptures (or any, really) but each patron god and their following have their own ideas about how life started here. You’re not going to argue semantics with some college kid. “I don’t really remember much about any of that,” you admit. “But it feels hells of blasphemous to denounce ancient scripture while we’re standing in a God’s house.”

“I don’t really think it’s his house,” the kid snorts, but his mouth curls up at the corners. “But you’re probably right.”

You turn away from the hallway and keep walking, ignore the shadows that sit on your shoulders like a weighted blanket. The main chamber takes up most of the interior, with high, vaulted ceilings and more stained glass than you know what to do with. The Knight of Time stands behind an alter in shattered panels, harsh lines of red and a sword that gleams silver and gold. His hair is stark white, his eyes shadowed in dark blues and blacks in the glass. You glance at the kid again. They really do go all out here.

Silence passes between the two of you, but you don’t feel pressured to speak. It’s like you’re waiting for him, patient, quiet. Something familiar, something foreign. You have been alone for a long, long time. “Does it ever scare you?” you ask after a beat, voice low, words from between your lips like wind between leaves.

“Lots of things scare me,” he replies, wry but honest. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

You look at him, bare-eyed, open as you can be. Your arms are getting cold, your fingers going numb. You can’t remember how long the two of you have been standing here, how long you’ve been alone. “Serving a god of death,” you say, watch the corner of his mouth tick down. “Celebrating something that eventually culminates in the end of all Life.”

He turns away from you and for a moment, you can almost see around the side of his glasses, get a brief idea of pale eyelashes and the thin skin on his cheeks. “I don’t really think about it that way,” he mumbles, and you get the idea that you made him uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” you offer, but you don’t feel like it’s true.

"What do you believe?" he asks, and you stare long enough that he elaborates. "Like, there's a shitton of scriptures 'n shit. Dozen and some odd gods to pick from, everyone I've ever met seems to have their own flavor. What's yours?"

That causes you pause. You followed your parents to church as long as they made you, but after meeting... After ninth grade you stopped. You don't really remember why. "Nothing," you say, and mean it. Tack on, "None of them, I guess."

He tilts his head at you, looks curious, looks cautious, like you're a thing to behold, but not touch. "That's kinda sad, don'tcha think? Not believing in anything."

Air stutters heavy out your nose, and you fight a smile. "Just cuz I don't ascribe to antiquated lore of an earth reborn just for us or whatever doesn't mean I don't believe in shit, kid."

"But you don't, really," he says.

"But maybe I don't, really," you agree, and standing there beside him, your chest begins to ache, and your eyes begin to burn.


	2. crown wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're beginning to think you might be haunted. You should probably get some more sleep. Or maybe not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm! I'm definitely not.... neglecting anything right now.....  
> anyway I don't know how I keep falling into this trap, but here is probably a standard warning for what will always end up being kind of weird sometimes gratuitous pseudo-gore lmao. death dreams! but not much else I guess!

You dream of a place that’s blue. Deep, bruising blue, dark like the ocean depths, just as suffocating. It presses in on all sides, a breeze that drags the air from your lungs, cool and heavy, sends chills down your spine, freezes the sweat on your skin, goosebumps pricking from shoulder to fingertip. When you inhale, it’s acrid with the stench of oil, cloying on the back of your tongue, the roof of your mouth.

This is a familiar scene, though you’d never been there before, you know it well now.

This is the place where you die.

Blood drains from your fingertips first, leaves them frigid cold against marine-colored stone, lips to match, and it stands over you, the dog, plucks the shades from your face, and you release a rattling gasp, not quite a laugh, you think _fuck, please, not again,_ and you

  
You bolt upright, scrambling for purchase, hands twisting in sheets for the first time in a week. It’s rare that you make it to your room before passing out. If you weren’t so tired, you’d call it a victory.

You wipe a hand down your face. The dreams have been getting more vibrant, shades of grey now startling technicolor, and you don’t know what to make of it.

Your phone buzzes beside your bed, charged for once. One might call you forgetful - you’d argue distracted. You don’t remember plugging it in (you don’t remember a lot of things from last night), but you catch it just as it vibrates off the edge of your nightstand.

There is a very small list of people who text you; the landlord, the owner of the autoshop (to tell you to clean up your shit), your manager (rarely, and only ever goofy pictures he sent by mistake), and your favorite and only relevant coworker, a rusty with a bad attitude and worse social etiquette.

It’s none of the above, and against your will, your mouth crooks up at the corner, just a tick.

RL: Strider!!!!!!!  
RL: Stridizzle  
RL: Di-Stri  
RL: The big Stridowski  
RL: Boss n I r in town for the weekend  
RL: Skaianet tech fest u should come I kno u get mad horny for that shit

You haven’t spoken to R. Lalonde in years. You met a long time ago, during your production phase in New York while you were on the consulting staff for the Detective Pony remake, back when you were still chasing... Well, anyway. It’s odd she would think of you now. It’s odd anyone would think of you, ever.

Unlucky, on top of everything.

RL: Strider r u even alive  
RL: Are u drunk lol bit early in the day but u never know  
RL: Earth 2 fuckin Dirkleton come in Dirkleton  
RL: Or yr the Houston man right so maybe its the other way round  
DS: hey.  
RL: Hey urself big guy!!!!  
RL: What tf is UP bet u couldn’t wait to hear from me again :)))  
RL: What are u doing are you busy???  
DS: just woke up.  
RL: Dude LMAO its like noon wtf  
DS: some of us work overnight, rox. give me a break here. by my standards, this is hells of early.  
DS: speaking of, i don’t have time this weekend.  
DS: got a gig late on saturday and i absolutely plan on sleeping off every combo of a hangover i’m going to have on sunday.  
RL: Booooooooooo  
RL: Why dont u come drinkin with the big kids instead!!  
RL: Youll have fun!  
RL: If u still let yourself do that kind of thing :\\\  
DS: so funny i’m laughing my ass off. literally. my ass has hit the floor running.  
DS: i may never see it again.  
DS: and neither will you.  
DS: because i have work.  
RL: Lol rip ur ass  
RL: Such a tragic loss at so young an age  
DS: we’re the same fucking age.  
RL: Nuh uh Im a whole year older that makes u a straight youngin  
RL: Now cmon misbehave with ur big adult friend  
RL: Bossll b there and we aint seen u in years  
RL: Dont u wanna ketchup over burgies n fries or somethin?  
DS: adorable food puns aside, no, not fuckin’ particularly.  
DS: i know you only want to talk robotics and aside from my general distain for your “boss”, skaianet couldn’t pay me e-fucking-nough to step foot in one of those dubious as hell shitholes you call laboratories.  
RL: :((((  
DS: fuck.  
DS: fuck, shit. sorry, i’m sorry.  
DS: i didn’t mean that, you know that.  
DS: fuck, rox, it’s been years. why now?  
RL: Honestly I dont know!!  
RL: We was just gettin ready in the meeting today n Boss mentioned she was headed outta town for the conventon  
RL: Wanted me to come w and I ask where and she says  
RL: Why Roxy darlin its New Houston o course!!!  
RL: And I go fuck u dont say Granny???  
RL: Everyone calls her Granny obvi  
RL: Bc shes old and also bc shes awesome  
RL: Anyway I says to her I says  
DS: rox.  
RL: Sign me tf UP!!!! My best lil buddy that ever was lives down there!!  
RL: Guess Im just lucky that way :)  
DS: we are not friends.  
RL: Dont even start mister!!! Im ur only goddamn friend and u fucking like it

You roll over in bed, pull the covers up over your head to avoid the light starting to poke through the blinds as the sun climbs high and peeks around the neighboring building. Fuck East facing windows, fuck the sun, and FUCK living on the top floor. It’s so overrated.

DS: even if we were friends,  
DS: and we aren’t,  
RL: (Exceptin that we totes are)  
DS: (we aren’t.)  
DS: there’s really no drive for me here to meet with you and that old bat.  
RL: Why do you hate her so much???  
RL: She aint never been anything but nice to u!  
DS: i wouldn’t call it anything approaching nice.  
DS: cryptic and vaguely threatening, maybe.  
RL: :\\\\\\\  
RL: U know if you came to work for the company youd rake in a shit ton more cash  
DS: i am aware, thank you.  
DS: i’m also not fucking interested.  
RL: Okay well when u get your head out of your ass and change your mind u know where to find me ;))

You absolutely do fucking _not_ , and you drop your phone off the side of the bed so you don’t say something shitty you'll regret.

You fall back asleep without meaning to, and it’s the dark space in between dreams, whispers you can’t quite make out, laughter that echoes against the walls of your mind, a mounting fear and apathy that makes you queasy.

You don’t wake up when your alarm goes off and you’re late enough for work that your coworker, the cranky red-blood who chews bubblegum on the job and never talks to anyone but you, scowls in a way that cannot be perceived as friendly on any level.

“I know,” you snap, before she can comment. Not that she ever really does. She speaks a troll dialect that you can just parse due to its similarity to a human language and your proximity to the Western hive collective. You never studied much in school, and though she’s more likely to insult customers than you, you don’t always trust what comes out of her mouth.

You drop down behind the counter as she leaves, massage your eyes. It’s pathetic, how much you slept today. You have no right to be tired. Except that you are. You’re always fucking tired. Your jobs ain’t even that hard, for fuck’s sake. You don’t even have a full-time job. There’s no way you can justify going out with Roxanne, nor do you particularly want to. It isn’t that you dislike her, far from it, or that you’ve got a full set of orders (you’re lucky, you guess, to live in a world that loves puppets so fucking much) to fill. It’s just that you’re so. Tired. You don’t talk to people. You don’t really want to.

A hand slamming the service bell sends you jumping out of your skin, left hand twitching for -

Well.

You don’t know what, actually. You don’t carry a strife deck anymore, and definitely not to work.

“Wow,” an increasingly familiar voice drawls, and you spin in your chair slowly because you’re not really in the mood for him right now. “You’re jumpier than I thought you’d be.”

“S’fucking late and I’m tired,” you grunt, scowl at the shit-eating grin on the kid’s face.

“Bullshit, you slept all day and we both know it,” he says, doesn’t seem in a hurry.

You tilt your head, take in his seemingly eternal wardrobe, more like glorified pajamas than the complicated garb of the Time God. You haven't thought of a good way to bring up that he keeps finding you. It'd make you sound paranoid, delusional. Like you don't believe in chance (which you don't). “You’re back again.”

“You’re the closest seven-eleven to my house,” he says like it’s a joke, drops a pile of Doritos and Mountain Dew on the counter. “A man’s gotta have his snacks.”

“What’s a seven-eleven?” you ask, although you probably shouldn’t. Kid is weird, for starters, and you’re not even sure if he actually goes to the local college or just. You don’t know. Performs in ceremonies day after day. You imagine that would be tiring. Or maybe not, if you were devout. You wouldn’t know.

“Uh,” he starts, laughs nervously. “Nothing. A joke. Don’t ask questions, I’m a man of God and you’re a random dude with a funny hat.”

Just to be difficult, you make eye contact with him and take your hat off.

He regards you carefully, hesitates. He looks more like a child today. Vulnerable, mouth an uncertain shape and shoulders curved. “You’re not wearing your shades.”

You almost laugh. Almost. It doesn’t come easy to you, never has, and the sound dies in between your throat and your lips. “They don’t suit me,” you tell him, scan the chips first. Four bags. What the fuck does he even need these for.

“What would suit you?” His voice is soft, and you think again of the way he stands away from you, how he holds himself, with burden, with fear. He does not trust you, but he keeps coming back. You wonder why, like longing, like guilt.

You shrug. “Dunno. Reckon I haven’t tried anything else. Don’t see the point, really.”

“Your eyes don’t hurt?” he blurts, and you raise an eyebrow. He looks away, and you track his gaze by the tilt of his head. “Cuz it’s bright. And stuff. In Houston. New Houston.”

“I guess,” you say, fiddle with the edge of your hat. When you reach for the two liter, he flinches, just a fraction of movement, and you’re surprised you catch it. You’ve always been like that, though, have always been fast. “Just used to it at this point, I s’pose. It’s bright as shit, but it’s always been like this. Don’t spend much time outside in the daylight, anyway.”

“What, got no friends?” he snorts, but it’s a crooked smile, teasing amusement.

“No,” you say slowly, taking his money, and gods above and below, does he  _really_ need this much soda pop? “You ain’t gonna drink all this by yourself are you?”

“No,” he snaps, defensive, gathers it all in his arms. “Unlike you, I actually have friends.” And then he’s speeding away, stutters to a stop by the ice cream fridge. “You should try more,” he says, and then he’s gone before you can ask what the fuck he means.

  
_Are you fucking kidding me?_

 _Go Away._ You flap your hand, hide your eyes. _Scram. Go to your room or. Whatever. Whatever kids in trouble do._

_This IS my room you colossal douchebag!_

A foot collides with the side of your head.

_Get off the floor! Are you still drunk?? Jesus, you look like shit._

_“What the fuck is a jesus,_ ” you say, and then you

wake up, eyes burning, head pounding, mouth filled with cotton and all of your everything aching like crazy. The arm you fell asleep on is numb, and there’s something oddly familiar about that, about the chill of your fingertips. The AC is working, at least. Your landlord should pay you, for how often you fix that fucking thing. “Christ,” you groan, and you don’t know why.

You scrape yourself up off the floor just inside the door to your bedroom on Sunday morning, and you think man, maybe you  _do_ need to lay off the late nights. At least as often as you pull them. Maybe you need a break. Multiple breaks. Your bones certainly seem to think so, and your hangover agrees. You feel like an old fucking man most mornings, bones burning at the joints, muscles strained from. You don’t know. All you do is sleep. Sup with that, anyway?

You stumble into the kitchen, lean on the counter while you wait for everything to stop spinning. Heh. Maybe  _you_ should stop spinning. You’re not too young to retire, you think. It’d give you more time to work on your projects, you could probably take in more orders, and you could still mix, if you felt up to it. Get a fucking Houndcloud, make some obscure-looking vaporwave album covers, drop some sick nasty beats on the web for all your adoring fans who will inevitably suffer without your presence. Or whatever. You could do everything you usually do, just. In private. With no alcohol. Or hangovers.

(Well maybe a couple hangovers. Never let it be said you’re a stick in the mud.)

  
You equip your shades as you stumble out the door, and it takes you a hot minute to realize they’re a different pair, and then you’re just standing there in the hallway, staring at a pair of shades, framed in neon fucking green and pointed at the corners. You put these on and you’re going to look like a Hopywood harlot out on the town, looking to score with a seedy drug dealer or.

Oh who fucking cares.

You put them on anyway, cat-eye lens and all, and figure it doesn’t really matter. The only people who’re seeing you today are the poor fabric store employees who have to cut the felt for your sweet, dear, sweet puppety asses.

  
You walk by the Maid’s temple on Hemera Blvd, today. Your truck’s outta the shop but you’re not up to drive today, still a little woozy, probably seriously fucking dehydrated (Water, dude, you need more water.) It’s not too far, anyway, and it’s nice out, shady down here. The flowers from before are, predictably, being culled by temple worshippers, and you pause a moment to watch their nimble hands, the careful way they collect bulbs and cut loose the dead stems. It’s neat. Or would be, if you had any interest in that kind of thing. Which you don’t. You were known for your black thumb, and Roxanne had teased you endlessly for killing every single plant you ever came in contact with.

And you think of her now, feel a sting of guilt for snubbing her. It really has been so long. You’ll never admit to that loneliness, that hollow space inside your chest that you can almost feel, that eats away at you and chokes you and presses hard at the space just under your ribs.

Your feet move on their own, past the temple, past the fabric store and the park with the statue that looks like wind spun from glass. You don’t believe in fate, like trolls, or fortune, like the carapacians, but when you find yourself outside the Church of Light, you know this the place where you’re supposed to be, at this time, in this moment, on this day.

And still, like most things in your life, you hesitate.

It pulls at you, all high steeples and bright white stone, marbled brick arches and too many windows to count. You have never liked them, the churches, their shape, the perfectly squared corners and perfectly angled roofs. It all leaves such a bad taste in your mouth. It’s just like you, you reckon, perhaps so much so that you detest it, the clinical, starched outside, how absolutely precise in shape and size and design. It reminds you of origami, edges sharp enough to cut, and you think, again, _Christ, how egregious can you get?_

It’s impressive though, you’ll concede that, as you run a hand alongside the serpentine form of Cetus, whose body wraps around the entryway, terrible gnarled claws on the edge of her webbed hands, scaled tail barbed and deadly. The stone is cool to the touch, like ocean depths, like hardened blue earth pressed against your back and you-

You step into the church, careful to close the doors behind you, and breathe in the comforting smell of books, dust, a whiff of salt in the air, no doubt carried in on the morning breeze. The building is old, but they’re all the same in the end, with their blinding sunbeams and lack of curtains. Church of Light is fucking _right_. More like Church of Fucking Migraines for Dumbasses.

You count six bookcases in the atrium, pressed up against the walls, and carefully do not roll your eyes. The consorts here are more curious than the Time temple’s (you suspect they are probably all idiots), but they’re also less inviting to strangers, even slow-moving and docile. They eye you, accusatory, and it takes a well-placed glare to send them toddling away, glubbing to themselves as they hurry off. It’s none of their fucking business, anyway.

You’re not going to find who you’re looking for, standing here alone with a bunch of turtles, so you press forward, down corridors covered in vibrant splashes of color, all the way up to the domed ceilings. You aren’t much for art anymore, not like your youth, but you can see the care with which the frescoes were painted, temples in pinks and purples, waters aqua and shining gold. The white sandy beaches, the cheerful pastels.

It’s all such fucking bullshit.

The contrast of the murals to the silence, to the heavy air, it’s all a little too uncanny for you. Sends something uncomfortable crawling down your spine like. Something. Spiders, maybe.

There has always been something particularly unsettling about the whole thing, to you. The Goddess of Light. Future. The Two-Faced God. The Speaker of Those Who Lie Beyond the Ring. The Mother of Knowledge. Blessing. Fortune. Punishment. Fear.

You don’t feel safe here.

You never did, not even as a child. Perhaps especially then. Your father’s devotion, your mother’s discomfort. You can feel it, here, stuck in the walls, the stink of old paper, the familiar warmth of the sun on your arms. You hate it.

You can feel the eyes on you before you move, and you go still, wait, don’t rub at the back of your neck.

“It all seems misleading, doesn’t it?”

A voice, smooth, low. Quiet, but not soft, no gentleness to be found around the edges. You turn, just a tick, and gods in the dark, she’s the spitting image of Roxanne.

But it’s not her, too bright, too dazzling in her yellow-orange robes, skin pale, lips painted dark, blackest black. She moves her hand along the wall, long fingers with thick knuckles, hands meant for fighting. Like Roxanne’s, like -

Like yours.

She traces the outline of a large purple shell, starting to chip around the edges from age. “They never paint the more macabre stories. I always found that quite boring. Denying a facet of legend while holding the rest of it aloft as a shining beacon of truth. It scares them to dwell upon, I suppose.” She turns to you, smiles. “Humans have always been afraid of our deepest truths.”

You hum, keep yourself apart from her. You don’t know if you’re fucking cursed or if all servants of gods are this discomfiting. Strange. You don’t like being here. You never have. You never will. “I reckon humans are the same as any other species,” you say, shove your hands in your pockets. You see a bit of darkness near the floor beyond her feet, black flames licking at the edge of a checkboard hillside. “We’re all afraid of what lies in the dark.”

“Oh, and you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you,” she says, and it’s not a question. She _relishes_  in it, a hint of teeth between black lips. There is something dangerous in her eyes, how they pierce through you. Violet eyes. Been awhile since you seen anything like that.

She reminds you, uncomfortably, of your father.

Saying what the fuck is rude, so you don’t. Light followers are known to be weird, unusual. You’re not fighting with another kid, not to-fucking-day. “No, ma’am,” you say slowly, and you do not step back, but you certainly don’t step forward. “Don’t suppose I do.”

She acts as if you didn’t speak, hides her bite from you and looks away, looks back again. “So what brings you here? The madame is out until noon. She never was an early riser.” She rolls her eyes. “They’re all like that. It’s a bad trait to pass down, don’t you think?”

“Can’t say I’ve any room to talk,” you say, try a smile. It strains at your jaw muscles.

She tilts her head, sends short waves tumbling towards her shoulder. “A natural aptitude towards sleep is a surprising turn of events. That’s uncommon among dreamers. You should count yourself lucky.”

“I don’t know what that means,” you offer weakly, and your skin begins to crawl all over, knuckles white where they’re curled in your pockets. “But no. I don’t. Just more of a night-owl, I guess.”

“Less rare,” she reassures you, and the poison in her smile seeps into your bones. “Looking for a fortune, then? I could wake her for you, if you want.”

“No,” you say quickly. “Don’t believe in any of that. No offense. I,” and you falter, don’t mean to. You feel cold. You feel. Suffocated. “I’m lookin’ for a friend.”

She nods, gives a laugh that is neither warm nor particularly pleasant. “I believe you’ve found the right place, and even if I did not, you’d find yourself in good favor with the gods, today. A rare occurrence, for one such as yourself. I’ll leave you to your fate, shall I?” She curtsies in a way that you find utterly facetious, and she walks away with the confidence of someone twice her age.

When she’s gone, when she’s no longer dimming the halls around you, you feel as if you can breathe again, if only a little.

You find Roxanne right where you expect to, right in the middle of the chapel, standing before a statue that reaches up towards the ceiling. You know she was orphaned as a baby, raised in the Church of Light, but you think it has never suited her.  
There's something about her that you can't explain. It's like she absorbs all the light in a room, swallows it whole, reflects none of it back.

"Thought I'd find you here," you say, and when she turns, cheeks dimpled by her wild grin, eyes sparkling, the sun doesn't catch on her pale hair, doesn't warm on her cheeks. You don't have a word to explain it, and you don't care enough to, not when she lets out a high-pitched shriek of girlish joy and throws herself at you, full body.  
She's not short, six foot in heels easy, but you still dwarf her, let your arms curl around her, close your eyes and think, fuck, when's the last time somebody hugged you?

"Yeah, that's fuckin' right, mister," she laughs into your shoulder, squeezes you tight. "You know you missed me."

You press your cheek against the top of her head, let out a stuttering breath through your nose. "Yeah," you say, soft, low, and so sue you, maybe you smile. "Yeah, I did."

There is little comfort to be found, for you, in a Church of Light, but Roxanne is certainly the exception, and perhaps maybe, just maybe, your luck is beginning to turn around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jazz hands  
> Big smooch to both my commenters I was too late to reply but I'm blown away and stunned and I cried what else is new haha  
> Also i guess unless u have read anything else I wrote u mighy not know but I p much half flip the guardians' typing quirks to match and contrast the youngsters i hope that makes sense I am very tired anyway yes thank you goodnight!


	3. pendulum bob

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro has one (1) friend and no luck. He probably just needs a pick me up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wiggly jazz hands  
> this got! a lot more attention than I thought it would! Hello!!! thank you for reading!  
> Standard warnings for pseudo-gore and just like, the weird kinda cryptic bs i have come to associate with this fic haha!

“Why do you still work there? It’s so below you, sweetheart,” Roxy laughs, lips curved around a martini (extra dry, stirred for twenty seconds, with a lemon twist, but only on weekdays) and you frown.

“Because I like money, and I’m not a spoiled brat, unlike some people.”

Roxanne is one of the few people on this earth who isn’t afraid of you, and she backhands your bicep hard enough that you’re almost certain it’ll leave a bruise. Lady’s stronger than she looks, and you both fucking know it.

“Ow,” you monotone.

“You’re  _such_ a dick,” she snorts, rolls her eyes at you. “What about your puppety thing? The smoocheps thingy!”

“Smuppets,” you correct, draining your beer. You never should’ve agreed to this.

It isn’t that you don’t like Rox, because you’ve pretty much proven the opposite, but the drunker she gets, the harder she is to deal with. She has a tendency towards being intentionally obtuse and yet simultaneously inscrutable, like the way she ordered your drink for you before you could open your mouth, or how she knows about your little fun-loving puppet ventures despite the fact that you never told anybody else about them. Or maybe you did, you don’t know. It’s kind of hard to remember the shit you did when you were still a shitty teenager. “And they’re doin’ just fine, online. Doesn’t mean I can pay for an apartment down-fucking-town on scraps of felt and dreams.”

“But why there?” she pushes, and you’ve never been good at denying her anything, face to face, her pink cheeks and dimpled grin. You’re not sure how you got wrapped so tight around her fucking finger.

You could lie. Could say it’s none of her business, because it isn’t. Could tell her to fuck off and leave you alone again. You’ve done just fine, so far.

But you don’t really want to, so you settle for the truth. Or at least a version of it.

“Because they haven’t fired me yet.” And it sounds pathetic, really, but after a failed career in the garage, four IT jobs, a handful of part-time work, and your short-lived stint as a production adviser, you’re pretty ready to call it quits on anything inherently people-based. Better to just skulk around in the corners of your universe and just. Chill, you guess.

“Dirk,” she says, and the way her eyebrows arch up, her painted lips turning down, it’s all startlingly familiar. “That’s the saddest fuckin’ thing I ever heard get said. Why don’t you come stay with me for a bit? In New York. Work at my lab. It’s remote, and I mean like, real dang remote.” She grabs your hand, squeezes it, and you are careful not to jerk away. “Middle of the fucking woods and everything. You wouldn’t even have to talk to anyone else, just a bunch of carapals ‘n me, like a mini vacation, huh?”

Roxy’s the opposite of you, she always has been, all shiny white teeth and candy-eyed dreams. You love her, if you’re being honest (which you rarely are).

“Nah,” you mouth says, and it feels mechanical, could almost kick yourself for the way you make her face fall. God, you can be  _such_ a dick. “Maybe - maybe next time, huh, Lalonde? I just have a lot of shit on my plate right now. I’m not in the mood for handouts.”

She sighs, mouth screwed up, and then she lets go, nails scraping at your knuckles as she turns away. “You don’t have to keep doing this, Dirk, you know that, right?”

“I know,” you say, but it sticks in your throat, dry mouth and tongue heavy. You don’t remember the last time you drank enough to be this tired.

You see her hair first, long gone white, cascading over her shoulders, brown from the sun and freckled with age, and you stumble as you bolt upright, Roxy’s steadying hand all that keeps you from tipping.

The smile that greets you is deadly with knowledge, acid green eyes ringed with gold, and when she says your name, voice sparkling and warm, your stomach turns sour. “Strider! Been a long time.” She tips her head to the side, gives you a wink. “Taller than the last time I saw you. I didn’t think you had any room left to grow.”

You can’t help the way your face closes up, could probably do without rolling your shoulder to shake Rox off you. You feel _wrong_ , around this woman, in a way you can’t explain. You always have. “I was just leaving,” you grunt, and it’s late October in New Houston, barely dipping below 65 on a bad day, but you are so suddenly cold, can’t quite breathe as you trip towards the door. A voice calls after you, and you realize you’ve forgot your new shades, left your new hat at the bar, and you don’t even fucking _care_ , not right now.

  
  
Here is what you dream: lava rising from below the floor, or the floor rising to meet it. The stench of sulfur, singeing your nose hair. Your heart slamming in your ears, beating wildly in your chest in 4-4 time. A feeling of urgency, sweat on your palms. The screech of your sword across a surface that’s meant to be scratched so, so easily. Earth in deep, bruising blues. Green fire against your back, the flap of wings and the sing of a blade drawn. Snarling canine teeth. Searing, unimaginable pain. Choking, drowning, something hot bubbling from your lips.

Bright red blood.

It’s always bright red.

You wake up on the floor heaving for air and choking on blood. It’s Tuesday, and you’re soaked in sweat.

It takes a second for you to come all the way around, heart slamming against your rib cage, frantic, leaves your throat clogged and your mind blank.

For a moment, a beat in time, you can’t remember your name.

You cough, and when you taste copper, you cough again, spit blood up on the carpet. Whelp. Must’ve bit your tongue in your sleep.

“Shit,” you mutter, stare at it for a beat. Good thing you’ve got no plans to relocate anytime soon, because there’s no way you’re getting the deposit back like this. Dragging yourself up after a nightmare is always hard, but it hurts more today, an ache in your ribs, your mouth still wet with blood.

It’s been a rough few weeks.

When you check your phone (plugged into the wall behind the couch, you don’t remember doing that but you crashed early last night after that disastrous drinking date with Roxanne), a wall of pink text greets you, and you wince, curse again. Fuck, you really fucked up again this time. You can’t keep doing this.

You message her back. One line. “sorry.” And toss it back on the coffee table. Press your hands into your eyes.

Maybe you’re dying, you think, hysterically. Maybe you’re allergic to - to you don’t know. Maybe something in the water’s been making you hallucinate for the past - how many years has it been, anyway?

Have the dreams always been so bad?

And you think, just for a minute, right before your headache catches up to you, hits you right behind the eyes, _“What did I do to deserve this?”_

  
You don’t know why you agreed to do this. By all accounts it’s a waste of your fucking time. You definitely have better things to do, and the dirt you’re currently getting under your nails is going to take hours to wash out.

A cold, wet hand slaps across the back of your neck and you shoot upright, cursing while Roxy laughs, low and delighted.

“It’s just sunscreen, calm your tits.” She holds up here hands, wiggles her fingers, and you scowl at her, wipe the dirt off on your pants. “You’ve been out here for a couple’a hours, you’ve got to reapply that shit.”

“Yeah, wonder why I’m out here at fucking all while you sit in there, sippin’ tea with the ministry,” you grunt, begrudgingly raise your arm up to rub the sunscreen in. You didn’t raise yourself to be a fool. At least, not intentionally.

“Becoooos,” she drawls, grabbing you by the wrist and smearing the excess sunscreen up your arms. “I’m an emissary from the Church of Light, lending a hand to the local Life Temple, and you’re my helpful lil handyman, who does all the work because a lady never gets her hands dirty.”

That’s complete bullshit, you know. Rox used to box in college. You don’t remind her, since she’ll just punch you again, just roll your eyes behind bright pink sunglasses and drop back down into the vegetable garden. It’s not the most personally constructive use of your Thursday afternoon, but it makes Roxy happy, and you always told yourself you’d do something for the temple, since (according to legend, anyway) the Maid is the reason flowers even bloom “across the desert” in the first place. Your life has been clouded with gods lately, much to your chagrin. “Didn’t think Light ‘n Life really had much to do with each other,” you say conversationally, when you’ve lapsed into silence and she’s still standing over you. You don’t particularly like it, but it’s just Roxy. “But I reckon that makes sense. Sun provides a means for Life to grow, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Light has more to do with fortune,” Roxy says, and she drops beside you, scooping the carrots into a bucket. “But you’ve got the spirit, so I’ll let it go. Now c’mon, let’s finish this shit up and then we can both go inside for a bit. Got a delicious glass of OJ with your name right on it.” She gives you a wink and a nudge and you huff, elbow her hard enough to knock her off kilter, and almost laugh when she falls over with a yelp.

“You don’t strike me as particularly faithful to religion,” you say to her, later, when you’re back inside and politely sipping at an herbal tea that tastes more like dirt than it does like leaves.

Roxanne laughs, muffled, into her mug. “Well, duh, I ain’t. That stuff’s for kiddies and bedtime stories. Old people who’re lonely and stuff.”

“Right,” you say slowly, and you never really got it, why she tried so hard. She’s spent her whole life bathed in Light and has nothing to show for it. Maybe you just don’t understand the appeal. “So why?”

“Hmm,” she says, drops her head back against the wall. The hands that hold her cup are long, tapered, but thick around the knuckles. Hands meant for fighting. “Do you remember Harley?” When you scowl, she laughs. “He was always into this. The whole...” She flaps a hand around you, at the painted walls, the salamanders delicately carved in polished jade, flowers lying at the feet of a statue, over ten feet tall (she’s beautiful, really, in her own way, and your fondness for her leads you to smile). “Life thing. Nature-y stuff, you know how he is.”

Yeah, you sure fuckin’ do. You hum. “So what, he made you crop his pumpkin patch and now you got a fetish?”

This time when she punches you it’s hard enough that you wince, and you do actually laugh, just this once.

 

You haven’t thought about the kid in more than passing in more than a week, haven’t seen him in almost three.

It’s not that you miss him, because he’s deeply unsettling, and you don’t even know him. It’s just somewhat bizarre, at this point, that you haven’t crossed paths again. You wonder, absently, if Roxy had anything to do with it.

You’re wrapped up in an article about a completely secluded population of consorts on a remote island in the south Pacific when the door above the bell dings at three am on a Sunday night. You reluctantly turn in your chair and see him standing there at the register, holding a family sized bag of Doritos and a single energy drink.

He’s wearing the getup again, and the shades, reflective back and rimmed with gold, same as ever. You’re beginning to wonder if that’s a staple of Time rhetoric. Stagnation, versus the endless march towards the end of all things.

“Hey,” you say, feel a smile pull at your mouth uncomfortably.

“Hey,” he says, but doesn’t return the favor. He puts down his snacks and digs through his pockets. “Could you add some cigs on there? Pack of Pall Malls.”

You pause at that, genuinely surprised. He’s not a _child_ , but you don’t reckon he’s  _that_ old. “Seriously?”

He snorts. “Uh, yeah, duh.”

Well. Okay. But you’re not getting fired, not to-fucking-day. “A’ight, but I’m gonna need to see an ID first, let’s have it.”

He freezes with a twenty in his hand. “I don’t have an ID.”

Yeah, you just fuckin’ bet. You cross your arms, arch an eyebrow up over your newest shades (purple tint, silver rim; they just keep showing up around your house, you don’t really care at this point it’s ridiculous). “Then no fuckin’ go, kid. It ain’t happening.”

It doesn’t feel like you’ve insulted him, more like you’re winning a silly argument he thought he had in the bag. If you could see his eyes, you’d just bet they narrow. “I’m twenty-one.”

You scoff. Not impressed. “Yeah, and I’m forty-five.”

He tips his head at that. “No you’re not.”

“Exactly. ID or nothin’. Your choice.”

The corner of his mouth curls down and you think gods, doesn’t that seem familiar.

You scan his chips, the drink, hold out a hand patiently. You could do this all day, honestly, and you almost kind of enjoy it, being a shit and watching him puff up like a little air balloon.

He slides the twenty across the counter and holds firm when you grab at it. “C’mon, man, at least let me bum one off of you.”

“I never said I smoked,” you say carefully, punching in his change without looking.

“But you do, right? Pall Malls.” He relinquishes the twenty before your hands touch, takes a step back that you’re probably not meant to see.

You hesitate, roll the idea around in your head. You can tell he’s not a high schooler, but that doesn’t mean you should just be handing out cigarettes to every John and Jane who walks through the door. “I’m down to three.” Which isn’t a lie, because you are, but it feels weird, all the same.

“Bullshit,” he snorts. “You keep a second pack taped to the inside of your dashboard.”

You stop with your hand out, poised to give him his change, blood gone still in your veins.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

And he is, of course he fucking is, but you had forgotten, hadn’t even thought about it. It’s a habit you formed without thinking about it, like an emergency fund for a rainy day. Assurance, you guess.

Before you can speak, he goes on, takes the change as it drops from your fingers. “It’s almost time for your break, I’ll just hang around until then.”

“Kid -” you start, and it’s aggravation, frustration and misplaced dread, but he’s already moving across the store, plops his ass down on the ice cream freezer and carefully doesn’t look at you.

He pulls out a phone - red case, of fucking course - and proceeds to ignore you, so you give him a glare he can’t see and start back stocking the tobacco case so you don’t have to see him watching you.

Your relief comes in precisely on time, same as she always does, and you couldn’t be happier to see that painted red frown and that needle sharp scowl.

“I’m going on break,” you tell her, hopping over the counter in haste. She opens her mouth, sees the kid scrambling after you, and settles for flipping you the bird as you speed towards the back of the store.

The kid follows you in complete silence, only hesitates a moment when you hold the door open for him, doesn’t thank you for it.

It feels incredibly awkward, when you fish your half-crushed pack out of your back pocket and hand him a cigarette. Your fingertips touch and he flinches away, and you let him go, let him take it with, don’t tease him for it. Part of you knows that would be wrong, that you are a thing to be feared, in that way.

It still seems kinda fucked up, like you’re letting your kid brother light up or some shit. Or at least that’s how you imagine it.

You never had a little brother. You were always kind of grateful, to be an only child.

And you realize, watching his shades reflect the lighter as he brings it to his lips, that he reminds you so much of someone it almost hurts, a burn in your chest, like longing. Like guilt.

You don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that guy. Not anymore.

“So are you?” you ask after a second in silence, when he’s tossed your lighter back to you and you’ve jammed it in your pocket. Just two guys, hanging outside at three am. Perfectly normal shit, going on here.

“Am I what?” He doesn’t take off his shades. Neither do you.

“Twenty-one.”

“Oh.” He takes a drag, releases it shakily. You hide a smirk. If he’s been smoking for long, it doesn’t show. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I am. I guess I never really bothered with a license or anything.” He looks at you, coughs, clears his throat. “I don’t know how to drive.”

It’s the hilarious deadpan that does you in, and you muffle a laugh around your smoke. “Jesus, kid. So what, you just walk everywhere? Maybe fly with your sweet fuckin’ cape?”

When you glance at him, he’s gone stock still, but you don’t think much of it, beyond the fact that you’ve probably made him uncomfortable, or perhaps gone too far. Kinda serves him right, honestly. You don’t really know each other that well, and this whole thing is probably really fuckin’ weird from the outside, even if it feels familiar.

Even if  _he_ feels familiar.

“I don’t know about that,” he says instead, and you can see the nervous tick of his fingers from here, how they flex at his side, like he should be holding something. “Air traffic control would probably take me out before I got too far. Between you and me, I don’t think they consider flying to be strictly legal.”

“Mm, I’ve heard they still use lusii out in the sticks,” you say, don’t know why. The whole thing is a touch ridiculous. “Reckon flight laws are lax with giant fucking bird monsters flappin’ about like crazy.”

“They’d just try to eat me,” he says, but you think he sounds amused. The cigarette in his hand doesn’t suit him, you think. “You ever seen a dragon lusus up close? Things are huge as fuck, and pantshittingly terrifying.”

No, but it’s a little worrying that he _has_. “No,” you say, shrug. “Grew up in the city, all my life. Was never much interested in farming or anything like that.”

“New Houston?” he asks, quiet, on an exhale. He’s watching you carefully, and the space between you stretches for miles.

You think about not answering. About going back inside and slamming the door on this kid and his cape and his stupid cigarette. Your feet are heavy, stuck to the pavement like they’ve been tied with cinder blocks. “Odessa,” you say, and it’s like acide in your throat, bile on the back of your tongue. You remember blearily hot summers, you remember sitting alone in the back seat of a car, blood on your sleeve and toilet paper in your nose. Remember learning to smoke in the high school parking lot, remember the first time you ever fixed a flat tire. “Moved away when I was sixteen. Never went back.”

“But it wasn’t all bad,” he murmurs, blows out smoke that curls up over his head, seems to freeze a fraction before it hits the overhang you stand under. “You weren’t always completely alone.”

And for a moment the air all goes very still, and you forget how to breathe. He stares at you, obsidian lenses and stark white hair, looks through you, or past you, and you struggle for the right words to say, arms bare and cold, feeling raw and exposed.

“I never said ANY of it was bad,” you say softly, and anything else dies in your throat when you look at him.

There is something unnatural here, the way he holds himself apart from you, the way the air seems to stagnate around him, like the space outside this pocket of time belongs to no one but the two of you.

“Well,” he says lightly, nonchalant as if commenting on the weather. “Guess I fucked that up, huh?”

And there, in that beat, you finally fucking get it. Obsidian shades. Stark white hair. Scattered metal structures, iron red granite.

“Oh,” you say, taking a drag off your cigarette. “You’re one of them. You’re a God.”

He smiles, like a sliver of moonlight. Like the first night of summer. “Took you long enough.”

You struggle with your words for a moment. So it’s real. The whole fucked up pantheon is - well. Fuck you, you guess. “Most people don’t assume that their stalkers are deities,” you finally say, and he cocks an eyebrow, tips his head to the side.

“Do I count as a stalker if it’s pretty much my job to watch over you?”

You pretend to think about it for a minute. You remember the first time you saw him, dark shades, the way his cape hung heavy on his shoulders, like velvet. Like a burden. You think about sunglasses on the floor, the desk, the counter, in your fucking ass pocket. Curtainless windows, bundled flowers on a stone step. “Yes,” you say, and carefully don’t laugh when he huffs.

“That’s a little hypocritical for a voyeur.”

Your mouth curls down of its own accord. “I’m not a voyeur.”

“You only work here because -”

“I like money.”

“You like watching people,” he corrects.

He’s got you there. You shrug. “They’re weird. I like that.”

“But you could do anything,” he blurts, and he sounds like a kid, stubborn and indignant. “You’re hells of smart, dude. You’ve got a fucking degree from NHIT.” You don’t ask how he knows that. You’re not a god. Or, for that matter, a stalker. “So why do you keep.” He flaps his hand around, reminds you of Roxy. “Doing all this.”

You think about your conversation with Roxy, and it feels far away in this moment, and you can’t really think of anything to justify how you live your life, certainly not to a kid. A god. Whatever.

You shrug again, helplessly. Settle on truth. “Dunno.” Think about wolves teeth and acid green fire. “I guess I just. Don’t have anything better to do.”

He hums, shifts on his feet, brow furrowed and lips pinched. “You know,” he starts.

You don’t really know. You have no fucking idea what he’s going to say.

And then he just doesn’t say anything at all.

You finish your break in perfect silence, and you turn to go back inside, hold the door open for him, but when you look over your shoulder, he’s already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might include a chapter about Bro's fake upbringing in the future, but it will be.... uncomfortable probably! anyway thanks for stickin' with me while i juggle two fics, guys!! c:


	4. balance spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you really not believe in destiny? Or do you think yourself above it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow!!!!!!!! it's been!!!!! s o long!  
> sorry for my absence! i have been doing camp nano, which is how r&g managed to grow by close to 50k in a month! but i hit my word count goal and i had some free time c;  
> i also wrote most of this while i was half asleep so  
> i am so sorry  
> cw for nasty dream gore, puking, just like. more puking than necessary probably?  
> shit's gettin' weird, huh?

It’s less than a week til Holloween (you never understood the point of the whole thing, dressing up for the gods - sometimes  _as_ the gods, and what’s up with that - seemed pointless then, and moreso now that you’re an adult) when you wake up vomiting blood.

You don’t remember your dreams vividly that morning, so unlike yourself, to sleep in that dark, uncomfortable space where your memories but they’re not memories they’re just dreams they’re just bad dreams aren’t they?

You remember nothing, first. A sharp, stabbing pain in your chest, second.

A rattling gasp like you’re breathing through punctured lungs, a hand clawing at your shirt, someone shouting your name (is it your name?), and you curl upright to spill your guts in bright red on the cool linoleum of your kitchen floor.

There are several ways one might handle this situation. Calling an ambulance, maybe 911?

Saying _“huh,”_ and moving on is probably the least responsible thing you could do right now, so you flop back down and lie on your side instead. The room is spinning, a beat pulsing steadily behind your eyes, heart thrumming in your chest, and you think _Fuck, must’ve bit my tongue again._

Maybe you have an ulcer.

Maybe you got a nosebleed in the middle of the night. You wipe the back of your hand against your nose and mouth, and they come away smeared in crimson.

Well.

Okay.

The inside of your mouth stings with copper, and you wish for the first time in awhile that you didn’t live completely alone, that there was someone (anyone) to bring you a glass of fucking water.

Your fingers grapple for a pair of shades (they’re never far from your side, these days,) and you think, ” _I’ve got to stop falling asleep on the fucking floor,”_ as you wedge them onto your face before closing your eyes again, just a few more minutes longer.

It’s the fourth time this week you haven’t remembered your dreams, the third time you’ve tasted blood upon waking.

First time you’ve gotten a nosebleed in your sleep, though.

At least not since you were a kid, and memories drag themselves forward in your mind, an insistent hand dabbing blood out of your sleeve, shoving toilet paper up your nose.

You bite back on that with a curse and roll to your feet.

You’ll be more careful, you tell yourself, riding the bus down to the garage that afternoon. Your shit awful car died again, and you think this time you might have to replace the whole engine. More trouble than it’s worth, maybe, but you just can’t stand to part with the damn thing, even if you can’t really put into words _why_. Your life would probably be a lot easier if you learned to let things go, even just a little.

 

  
It’s half past three when he finds you in the back of the shop, your head jammed under someone else’s hood (and you hadn’t wanted to take a look, hadn’t wanted anything to do with the business of strangers or your old coworkers, but fuck, sometimes the kids get to you, what can you say), and you almost jump when he speaks.

“Do you ever take a fucking day off or would that give you too much time to dwell on your own misery?”

You’re familiar with him now, the suddenness with which he appears, that atmospheric shift to the left you can’t explain. You’re still not entirely comfortable with the fact that he’s a god, or that he keeps bothering _you_ , of all people. Of any people at all.

“Dunno,” you say instead, keep your tone cool and detached, “do  _you_ ever actually Do anything godly, or d’you just float around botherin’ folks like me all day.”

“Nah,” he says, steps out of the was as you move to roll onto a creeper and check this fucking nightmare’s undercarriage.

You coulda worded that better, probably.

It doesn’t really matter.

“You don’t have like, prayers that need to answered or some shit? Somewhere else that ain’t buggin’ me.” It’s a question, albeit a not very nice one.

“Nah,” he says again, and you see his feet shift just a fraction from where you are on the ground. “That’s not really my thing. Or any of our thing, really. We aren’t technically gods of Earth, just the universe.”

“Aren’t the two intrinsically connected?” Gods, who let this person even own a car? “Being that the planet is in - and I’m just guessin’ here - the universe you preside over? Seems kinda counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?” You really didn’t want this to take all day, not with the half dozen other errands you needed to run, but it looks like your work is far from over.

“It’s kinda hard to explain.” You get the distinct impression he just shrugged. “The Earth is like an outlier -”

“And shouldn’t have been counted,” you say, and he snickers.

“Something like that. We coexist here with everyone, and I like to think we sure as fuck helped terraform this bitch, but we don’t directly control the population or nothin’, even if y’all are, quite literally, made in our image.”

“Narcissistic and hard to believe,” you say around a sigh, resist the urge to scratch your nose, “but I can’t really prove you wrong, and I don’t actually care, anyway.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” he says, dry, perhaps a little bitter. That intrigues you.

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

He shrugs, and this time you watch the swing of his cape against the back of his ankles. “You just don’t strike me as the type of guy who would care how the world was made, and what we’re all here for or whatever. You’re not curious. You don’t care about outside influence, or religion.” He pauses, then starts wildly backtracking. “At least, that’s the general vibe goin’ on here. Obviously we just fuckin’ met, what do I know?”

But it doesn’t feel like that, you want to say. It doesn’t feel like an impression of you. It feels like he  _knows_ you. You find yourself deeply unsettled, even if you’re unwilling to admit it. You bite down on that, but it gnaws at the back of your mind like a particularly persistent poodle bites at a leg. “Can you even answer that if I ask?”

“Ask what?”

You roll your eyes where he can’t see you. Kids. “What we’re all here for.”

“Well,” he says, around a sharp intake of breath. He’s quiet, and you imagine he might leave. He’s become fond of that lately. Stays for your work breaks, is gone before either of you say a word. You’re not sure what to make of it. You count to twenty before he finally caves. “Rose might know better. Light and knowledge and vast glub theory, blah blah blah. She’s smart, but she’s a bit hard to deal with sometimes. Get her started on destiny and we’d be here all fuckin’ day. Real stalwart abstruse broad, right there.”

“Rose, huh.” You think about standing in a blinding hallway, wheat blonde hair and dark, unnatural violet eyes. Rare fuckin’ color, those eyes. “She happen to wander around in neon fucking orange? Saying cryptic shit to strangers?” you ask. And then, “The goddess of Light is named Rose?”

“Well she sure as shit ain’t named Bob - wait, you’ve seen her?”

“Seen is a word. Hey, hand me the socket wrench, would ya?” You stick your arm out from under the car and waggle your fingers.

There’s a pause. “Uh.”

Sigh. “It’s the one that’s circular on the end. What kind of god are you?”

“Not an automotive one,” he grumbles, but your hand finds cool metal.

You don’t thank him, just for the principal of the thing. “So what _are_ you the god of?” You know exactly what he’s the fucking god of. You’ve seen the mosaics. The statues. The red banners and rusted pipes. Christ, he walks around draped in crimson like he’s late to a fucked up birthday sleepover. Or maybe a cult. Not that  _that's_ a stretch.

He’s entirely silent for half a beat, and you think how rude you must be, to confront a god like this, how you don’t care about anything like that, how you almost want to know if a god can cry. If there’s anything left inside that makes them human.

Okay.

You really shouldn’t think like that, you know, and you almost rescind the question entirely because it’s actually starting to fuck with you, rolling the thoughts over in your head like this, all lined up like logical little ducks in a row, and part of you feels deeply uncomfortable with yourself, watching his balance shift from foot to foot and back again.

“Time,” he says, like it’s a secret. He clears his throat a little. Awkward, unsure. Just a kid. “But you already knew that.”

“It was pretty obvious from the moment I met you,” you concede. “Dunno how I didn’t notice the first time. Quite the get up for August in New Houston.”

“Yeah.” The energy between the two of you has never been anything but tense, charged with static that leaves the bitter taste of metal on the back of your tongue, but you imagine, just for a moment, that it’s not as bad as it usually gets. “They’re magic pajamas.”

“They’d have to be, considering you never change them,” you say, and he huffs. You hide a smile, despite the fact that you know he cannot see you. “So. Forward, backward, what’s your deal.”

“Both. Neither.” He coughs politely, and his feet shift again. Left, right, back again. Easy, light. Familiar. “I don’t really travel much anymore.”

You roll the dolly out to look at him. Now that you know he’s a god it makes it weirder, that he’s so young. Younger than you, at least, by an easy ten years. Still just a kid, when it comes down to it (when you hit thirty, everyone’s a kid, but it’s not the same, when you see him, when you get that pang of loss that crawls inside and digs all the way down). “Why not?”

He screws his face into something like discomfort, and it surprises - pleases you, really - that he manages to be so human. He drops his head, won’t look directly at you. “Complicated. Expectations and...” He shoves his hands into his pockets, kicks one of your shoes half-heartedly. It’s only the second time, you’ll realize later, that either of you have touched. “Just stuff. God stuff. Don’t ask questions, mortal.”

You snort and wheel back under the car.

  
The thing about this kid is that he. Well he hangs around.

Like.  _Hangs_ around, all the way up into your break. Follows you, really. From car to truck and back again, from the front office to the area behind the dumpsters where you’re allowed to smoke. Like a shadow, like an annoying little brother you never wanted, who doesn’t seem to want anything at all except to spew facts about the local government, the economical health of your city, and how fucking dope it is to see the new gardens planted in the Life Temple so far ahead of schedule. It should be grating. Instead, it’s just kind of weird.

“Jane’s real fuckin’ pleased,” he tells you. Gushes, really, like a school kid with a crush. “She was sure they’d scrap the project, and with the salamander landscapers still in union discussions until November, she was this fuckin’ close to doing it herself. I keep tellin’ her, she’s gotta keep miracles on the DL. I had to tell her Jane, you know Jane, sometimes you just gotta leave the timeline to play out. Sometimes it’s not about making everyone happy, sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to preserve peace in the universe. She’s one of the good ones, Jane. Can’t stand the faces of these poor sonsabitches out here in the fucking desert, all trying to grow vegetables and shit and failing left and right. Those salamanders would die for her, if she asked them to. They’d pack up their little clown circus and get right back to work, but you know she’d never ask them to do that. She never thought they’d ever wrangle up the help they needed out of volunteers alone, anyway, but it all worked out didn’t it?” He looks at you pointedly, and you kind of flounder for a minute.

You have nothing to contribute to this conversation. You have no fucking clue what he’s talking about, half the time. Helping wasn’t even your choice in the first place.

It was Roxy’s.

“Am I supposed to know who Jane is,” you finally say, weakly. You have a distinct feeling the answer is no, and you don’t  _want_ to know.

He pauses with his hands in the air, still mid-gesture, and even with shades, for a moment you think he looks a bit surprised. Like he forgot who you were. Then he says, intelligently, “Uh.”

You wait, almost amused, and drag out your half-crushed cigarette pack, scoff when he gives you an expectant look. “I’m not giving you another one.”

“I’m an adult,” he insists. You snort. He watches you with a sullen little almost-frown, and you fight another smile. There is something oddly comfortable about this, and that makes you feel more on edge.

“You’re an adult without an ID. You’re not nabbin’ another one off me, punk.”

“Punk is what old lame people with no friends say,” he says petulantly, and if he were a child, you are certain he’d stomp his foot.

“Cool,” you drawl, taking a drag, “because I only share with my friends.”

The noise he makes in the back of his throat is enough that you muffle a laugh around your cigarette.

“You’re kind of a dick,” he tells you, and you sigh, a stream of smoke in the too-warm air.

“Can’t change everything about myself to impress one measly god. I’m not magic, y’know. Ain’t got jammies to back me up. So. Who’s Jane.”

He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut, scowls at you with his hands shoved back in his pockets. It’s his go-to defense mechanism, and it amuses you, just a fraction.

You raise your eyebrows.

He frowns harder.

You full body roll your eyes, just so he gets the point before you cave, and the moment your hands almost-brush is just as weird this time as it was the last time. He’s fast, you’ll give him that. “Can you even get addicted to this shit? Or is it just something gross you do for fun?”

“Don’t kinkshame my human fetish,” he huffs, and you toss your lighter at his head quick enough that it hits him between the eyes.

You are vindicated, for half a heartbeat, and then impressed when he catches it before it can bounce away, movement like lightning.

Watching his mouth open and close like a guppy, however, is entirely satisfying.

“You’re fast,” you tell him, an observation, a compliment.

When he smiles again it’s lemon-sour, and the cool air shrouds you in an instant, copper on the back of your tongue, honesty veiled in acerbity. “Learned from the best.”

Something about that feels off, off enough that you freeze, breathe in but can’t get the words out. You don’t know what to say. How does somebody teach a god? Do gods have parents? Who the fuck is Jane?

You will never get used to how quickly he flees from you, how eager he is to seek you out, yet so desperate to leave. It’s a slammed door and a head jerk, the tick of a second on an analog clock, and the space beside you sits empty as if it were never occupied at all.

You wonder, standing there in the parking lot (you only turned away for a moment, just a fraction of a second like a heartbeat, like a singular blink), if you are his new plaything. A soul for the gods to torture, so unaware, so easily used.

But why, you need to know, in the back of your mind, inching its way forward, a dull, barely formed obsession, won’t he leave you alone?

 

  
You spend Friday morning on the floor of your apartment with a pounding headache and Roxanne Lalonde standing in your kitchen.

She’s doing the dishes, you think (you own two, maybe three, as long as no one’s counting paper plates) and she won’t stop humming.

This would be fine, normally. You like having her around, and the minor background noises is rarely an inconvenience, but you feel like you’re on the verge of death via hangover, so you ask her to stop.

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

Well. Okay, you meant to ask. Politely, even.

She laughs, because she’s Roxy, and click-clacks back to you in her heels, each step like a nail in your temple. “You should drink water,” she tells you, nudges you in the side with her foot.

You keep your face pressed stubbornly to the floor. “Water’s for babies. This is fine.”

“I had to pick you up from the club,” she reminds you, not unkindly. She drops to a squat by your head, and the fingers that rake through last night’s gel feel better than any shower ever could. “Do you remember what you took?”

“Same ol’, same ol’,” you rasp, careful not to turn away from her hand. “I wasn’t drugged, Roxy. M’just hungover. And tired.”

“It’s six AM,” she says lightly, with too much enthusiasm.

“And neither of us have slept.” You do finally roll over when she pushes at you, maneuvers and bullies you until you’re in a Safe Position for throwing up. At least you won’t choke and die. Today, anyway. “How the fuck are you so chipper?”

“I’ve had my fair share of hangovers, dummy,” Rox says, boops your nose. “And yours seems worse than most. You need water.”

You glare. “I  _need_ sleep.”

Roxy is not impressed. “You can sleep in your bed.”

“I like the floor,” you grunt, just to be difficult.

She huffs, but you listen to her go and come back, and don’t have the energy to ask her to take off her fucking shoes. The sound the glass of water makes when she drops it by your head is like an earthquake to the eardrums. 

“Christ, Roxy,” you mutter, and she laughs at you.

“Now you’re just making things up to insult me for fun. Drink your water. I’ll try to scrape up breakfast.”

You press your eyes into the back of your hand until your vision floods red, then finally cave, half-heartedly tip the glass of water towards your mouth. It splashes down your chin but you don’t care, and you watch her dither about the kitchen over your glass, mumbling to herself as she picks through your cabinets. She’s wearing her Skaianet labcoat, and you wonder, with some measure of concern, if she was wearing that an hour ago when you called her (you had woken very suddenly on the floor behind the bar, just past 4 AM, and had no clue how you’d gotten there, no clue that your set had even ended at all).

“Work?” you ask, moving your arm to cover your eyes.

“Mm, don’t worry about that now. I’m going to do some remote work in the labs downtown until after Holloween festivities.”

“Shouldn’t it be Halloween?” you ask. “Doesn’t that make more sense.”

She snorts, incredulous. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid. Listen, we had a breakthrough in food sensors for artificial tongues. You should swing by, we’d be lucky to have you.”

She’s not wrong, but you resent the implications, so you argue. “No.”

Shit, that was rude.

“Thanks, though.”

Roxy sighs, comes back around and slaps a cold hand on your forehead. “Are you  _sure_ you didn’t take anything? You’re burning up.”

“It’s not - Just -” You shy away, but her hands follows. It’s cool on your hot skin, soothes the burning behind your eyelids. You refuse to tell her that. “Just bad dreams. They’ve been getting worse lately. I was probably just tired, didn’t get enough sleep or some shit.”

“Hmm,” she says. “You should come with me. Get checked out, don’t you think?”

You quirk an eyebrow. “So what, y’all got a department for bad dreams now?”

“Nothing quite that specific,” she laughs, smooths that hand back through your hair. “Dreams, yes. How they translate to motion in robots. Like I said, you’d like it.”

“Not interested,” you remind her.

She sighs. “English would kill to have you on her team, Dirk.”

“I know,” you mumble, don’t look at her. “I just don’t want to.”

“What is it about her that you hate so much?”

“She -” reminds you of the worst person you can be. You know that. “I don’t hate her,” you say. “I just don’t trust her.”

“She didn’t seem upset about the other day, you know,” Roxy tells you. “But she was sad you didn’t stick around. She’s funny, you would genuinely like her, if you gave her a chance.”

You remember the way she looks at you, head tilted, like she knows something, like you’re a puzzle she has to solve. You frown. “Have to pass on that. Get enough judgment in my own home.”

You haven’t told Roxy about the god thing. How could you, when you can barely believe it yourself?

Your eyelids are heavy, weighed down in a way you cannot explain, and you do finally let them close, fight against the blood that hides behind them.

“Do you ever have nightmares?” you ask, and feel like a child.

Roxy is one year older than you, but she has always been more poised, on the brink of something like an epiphany. “Sweetheart,” she says, voice guarded. “Are you sure you haven’t  -”

“No,” you mumble. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do something dangerous like that.”

“You used to,” she says.

“I was trying harder not to be myself back then,” you say. Bitter. A reminder. “Now I don’t have a choice. I don’t care. But sometimes I -” Sometimes you die. Sometimes your vision burns with green fire like neon light and you die. “Sometimes I think I’m cursed.”

“Cursed,” she says. She sounds almost amused. Her hand smushes further into your hair and you let your head lull sideways so she can curl her hand behind your ear.

“To live like this. Have a shitty hand in life.”

“Mm, maybe,” she says softly. “Do you really believe in destiny, though?”

“No,” you say, and mean it. You think about meeting a god and you laugh. “No I don’t.”

This time when you fall asleep, all you see is black.

 

  
“You should come out for Holloween,” Rox tells you when you finally come to later that afternoon. She moved you to your bed sometime in there and you’d be miffed, if it were anybody else. Roxy’s always been hells of fuckin’ strong.

Now she’s sitting on the floor texting someone while you lie in bed with your covers pulled up around your chin.

You think about how quiet your life has been, how alone you’ve been, how the space beside you has been (hollow hollow hollow) empty until recently.

Do you really not believe in destiny?

Or do you think yourself above it?

You watch the sunshine from the window hit Roxy, watch it shine across her curls, watch the light seep in until, when you squint, you can see a halo around her head. You think about how alone you had been. Before Roxy. She came back when you

You can hardly admit to needing her.

“I don’t want to,” you admit.

She frowns, lips curling into a pout. “Why not!”

You shrug. “S’not really my scene.”

“Bullshit,” she snorts, “it’s exactly your scene.”

You chew on your cheek, think of crowds and noise and. Tedious, really. Your work. “What do adults even do on Holloween?”

“We have a party, duh? A work party! You’ll like it. And I have news.”

You stare. “News.”

“Neeeeeeewwwwssss.” She wiggles her phone, then her eyebrows. “Boss texted me.”

“Can old ladies like her even text?”

“Please, the bones of our current technology has been around pretty much since the time of our inception, Dirk. Pay attention in history class.”

“I graduated when I was sixteen,” you say dryly.

“Rolling my eyes kid.” And she does, to prove her point. “Yes she can text. Duh. But that’s not my news. You’ll never guess who’s in town for the weekend!”

You roll back over the list of people you know for a brief second. It’s a short list. The obvious choice bites a hole in your heart and you flinch back for it instinctively. “No clue,” you tell her.

“Boo,” she monotones. “No fun.”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, rub at your eyes. You’re still tired, feel slow and sore like you’re moving through sludge with every motion.

“Boss’s brother,” she says. “Remember him?”

You do have to pause at that. New York feels so long ago (twelve and a half years, really, come and gone like a flicker in the grand scheme of your everything). You try to remember being young and nervous and still growing into yourself. “Vaguely?” you offer.

“Dude, come on,” she laughs. “Crocker, remember?”

“Jane?” you ask absently, and don’t know why.

What?

You try to raise your head and it swims so fast you feel sick.

“John Crocker,” she corrects. Frowns. “Did you mean Jane Eg-”

“I don’t know,” you snap, drop back down. You feel sick. _You feel sick_. “I must have. I don’t know. Shut up. I mean, keep talking. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she says, but you can feel her eyes bore into you. It’s decidedly uncomfortable.

“John Crocker,” you croak, furrow your brow. “He did... Night Court? Right?”

“Day Court,” she says cheerfully. “I guess they tried to get him on board with Night Court, because of the whole, y’know, human thing or whatever, but dude was suuuuper insistent on the Day Court bit. Honestly I think it’s funnier that way, because he’s like, absolutely not a real judge, and a human in a room full of trolls that are five hours past sunrise just makes it absolutely batshit.”

“They really let a human judge a court full of trolls? Doesn’t that lead to bias?”

“Nah, not with Crocker. He’s kind of a goofball.” She rolls her eyes. “I heard his best friend is a real legislator and shit. Tealblood and everything.”

“Right,” you sigh, dig the heel of your hand into your eyes. “They smell justice or whatever.”

“Don’t be silly,” she huffs. “That’s just a myth.”

“Okay, whatever, they make it work. Day Court.” You squint at her. “Does this have a point?”

“Well, sort of,” she says, bites her lip. She turns her phone over in her lap. “He worked in New York for a time when he met English - that’s how they found out they were related and all, small world, right? Anyway he’s out in Hopywood now, and he’s in town this week with -”

“Stop,” you say sharply.

Roxy pauses, tips her head. “You really don’t want to see him again.”

It’s not a question.

You bite your cheek so hard you taste blood. “No,” you say.

You remember the last time you saw him, the way he looked at you, eyes wide and startled, the hand he put on your shoulder, how it burned through your shirt, how you used to be so much shorter than him -

“No,” you repeat. Your body feels hot and cold all at once, and you think you’re going to puke.

You were eighteen the last time you were in the same room.

You had reached for him.

He had stopped you.

 _“Not right now, huh?”_ A murmur, a pained little smile that strained all the way into those fucked up eyes, just like

And you realize.

You realize who he reminds you of, your god, your nameless god, just a kid, stark white hair and obsidian shades, and you throw the covers back, flash faster than you’ve ever managed in this life (you don’t know what that means).

One second you’re in your room.

The next your shoulder smashes into the bathroom door and you collapse upon your porcelain throne.

It feels like an eternity for Roxy to find you there, and she sinks to her knees in a hurry, cursing under her breath. “Oh Dirk, sweetie, I’m so sorry, I should have known, I shouldn’t have - oh you aren’t ready, you aren’t ready at all.”

“I’ve never been ready for anything,” you groan, think about meteors for some reason, meteor showers on your twentieth birthday, walking to your favorite shop in ( _Houston?_ ) New Houston.

“You will be,” she soothes. “Oh darling, I shouldn’t have pushed you. You’re not ready, and that’s okay. You don’t have to - you don’t have to be.”

Her fingers are like ice on your burning face and you heave and cough until you’re puking blood, bright red against your perfect white shirt, and you groan in three types of agony you can’t control.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the overwhelming positivity this fic has managed to garner to the point where i got asks about it on tmblr is just!!!!! incredible!! thank you! so much!!!!  
> sorry for the sporadic updates, and thank you all for your patience! <3


	5. wheel train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to face your past.  
> Are you ready?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka Bro and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  
> Sorry it has been so longish! I have been working on the other fic hahaha fkgkgksks sorry!  
> Cw for vague backstory shit, vomiting, a panic attack, and gratuitous use of the word fuck

It’s the day before Halloween and you are back at work against your better judgment (and Roxy’s, but you gotta make that paper, son, don’t have time to sit around with your dick in your hand, some people actually gotta  _work_  to make it in this world), and you sit with your face pressed to the cigarette cabinet. You’re tired, because of course you are, pounding head like the hangover never left, pressure at your temples and eyes that burn in the corners. You haven’t slept well, really, no surprise there, and your dreams have just. Gone completely off the rails. Dark space and laughter, always laughter, shifting into the familiar scene of you staring at flickering stars, pinned to the ground, same shit, different day, scored with warm hands and blood, always  _always_ blood, because you can’t dream about anything normal, of course not, that’d be insane. What kind of person has good dreams.

It isn’t really that they’ve gotten worse since Roxy showed up in your life, because you never really remember anything, when she’s there, always wake up in your bed, phone plugged in and AC running (She is a good gal, that Roxy, and you love the shit out of her, you’re just - you’re bad for people, you think, you’re not the kind of person you think people really deserve to have around, maybe, have kind of always known this about yourself, aren’t too worried about the implications).

You should be watching the register, or moving the boxes from the back, maybe go through your finances on your phone, if nothing else, because what you’re doing right now kind of sucks. You’ve never been good at sitting still, always a shaking foot, popping knuckles and tapping fingers. Fidgety, unsettled. Restless. Bored, maybe. You’re always bored.

You should do something, you think, and your brain plays that on repeat. Do something, do something, do something, til you don’t do anything at all, just sit there, staring at the floor and chewing idly on the inside of your cheek.

You’re probably dehydrated, licking chapped lips, rotating your wrist til it cracks. You roll it once, then again for the satisfaction you get when the pressure releases, think about the first time you broke it. Stairs were involved. Your life is nothing if not ironic, possibly in all the wrong ways. You got out of there, though. New Houston is as close to home as you ever got to anything like that, barring the six months you lived in New York with Roxy. That was. Interesting, at least.

She pestered you first thing this morning, about twenty seconds after your eyes opened. She’s always like that, always fucking knows, it’s been years and you two fell right back into the same habits like nothing ever changed.

Like you never changed (but you did, didn’t you, grew tired and mean for no reason at all, miserable and shitty, just like your fucking life).

Christ, but she’s really got you

Well that doesn’t make much sense, does it?

She’s got you on a short chain, anyhow.

You did agree to go to that godforsaken party in the end, if only to shut her up, and you aren’t working that day, didn’t have an excuse ready when she bugged you for the thirteenth time. You don’t want to go. No surprise there. You’ve never been the type for parties, wouldn’t go if you could get out of it, and you just fuckin’ know it’s gonna be you standing in the corner like a forlorn teenie bopper at prom, clutching a lukewarm beer and hoping desperately that none of them so much as look at you. Rescinding would also mean a standoff with Rox, and you don’t really want to risk it. She’s a menace on a good day. You hate to think of her on a bad one.

She’s right, of course; Old Lady English is not cruel, at least not intentionally, though a shrewd business woman, you know she’d never do Roxanne dirty. She just has this way of looking at you that reminds you of

_green fire, barking dogs, steel through your lungs_

things you’d rather forget. It’s not a big deal.

Well maybe it’s an okay-sized deal. She spent several of your long hours in New York offering you a job you didn’t want. That’s not. Really her fault, anyway. You only wanted one thing back then, and you didn’t fucking get it, did you? It’s fine, though. Water under the bridge, really.

But it’s only a couple hours, and you’d rather play designated driver than risk the return of Roxy’s somewhat impressive, mostly terrifying, college career. What a fucking nightmare.

So you bang your head against the glass, rub a hand across your eyes. It’s probably a good thing you’ve got shades for work now, because the circles under your eyes would just. Absolutely terrify people, if the color didn’t do such a good job on its own. You keep your newest pair (electric yellow with some kind of fucked up rip-off of a popular cinematic character) tucked into the front of your polo. Your manager doesn’t seem to mind what they look like, so long as you stop freaking out the (honestly you hate to be speciesist but) somewhat skittish carapacian customers. Trolls couldn’t give less of a shit. Those are your people right there. Night owls, at least as friendly as you, most of them don’t really care if you can’t speak anything but shitty mainstream dialects, and anything like Damara’s you can hold for more than a few words just manages to impress them. So worldly, this stupid, bright white human. Wow.

The point is, s’long as you’ve got your shades, everything’s fucking fine and dandy. Nobody gettin’ scared on your watch. Or because of it, anyway. You are so goddamn tired, bordering on batshit, and you think fuck, I should buy a red bull. Something. Anything. It’s a miracle that you haven’t started talking to yourself out loud.

  
The bell over the door pings just past 3 AM, when you’re arranging shit by color to pass the time. You don’t look up immediately, why would you, and when you hear the telltale crinkle of chip bags and a soft curse as they’re dropped all over the floor, you sigh, roll your eyes, shove your shades on, and rotate your chair all the way around to see

Oh no.

Oh FUCK no.

This is not.

This is not okay.

You are not okay.

It’s almost a surprise to see him dressed so casually, red hoodie and jeans ripped at the knee, hair mussed like he hasn’t brushed it in days. You reckon it is pretty late, and most species have gone to bed by now. Guess he still doesn’t sleep much. Not like that’s changed for either of you.

It has been a long damn time since you have seen David Lalonde (but that wasn’t always his name, was it?) in person, but you remember every second of your last interaction vividly, in technicolor, surround sound, the whole fucking shebang. You could narrate, if your heart weren’t pounding in your ears. It’s the taste of bile on your tongue, pressure in your chest, an odd sting of resentment, mixed with something you just can’t place. So fucking what if he’s here? Why do you care so much?  
Why the fuck do you _care_?

It coils around your gut, twists your mouth sour.

Fuck.

He wanders to the counter irritatingly slow, tapping at his phone without even looking up. Any concern he’d recognize you right off the bat goes out the fuckin’ window. Idiot doesn’t even glance your way as he fumbles to put his shit on the counter, like the world’s worst juggling act.

Figures.

Don’t know why you were so worried, really. This is just fucking silly.

“That it?” you say, smooth as butter. Hold back the sarcasm and repressed anger.

He hums absently, pulls out his wallet. You look at that hair, so familiar, shorter than your little god’s, combed messily from his cowlick, and fuck, he really hasn’t changed has he, stupid shiny shades and placid expression. _Christ_.

(One day you’ll place that saying, and you’ll put a stop to it. For now it’s annoying, if nothing else.)

“Pack’a Pall Malls,” he adds, distracted.

Your lips twitch of their own accord and you carefully do not let it become a smile. Some things never change. “Surprised you can smoke anything without it being leafed in gold,” you drawl, just to be a dick. “ID, please.”

This makes his head jerk up, face already set and ready to bitch. You’d know his tells anywhere, the dip of his brow, the pull at the corner of his mouth, and he’s halfway through, “You obviously know who I am, why does it matter if I -” before he gets a good look at you.  
You do not break. “No one gives a flying fuck who you are,” you say, because you can tell where this is going and you want _out_. “Y’aint buyin’ cigarettes without a proper ID.”

“Dietrich?” It’s a tiny crack in his impenetrable mask, eyebrows up and lips parted, and you feel it like a whole in your heart. “Dietrich Strider?”

You can’t help the cringe when he says your name, the familiar way his mouth curves around it, the way he’s looking right at you, open and honest and. Gods. You were kinda hoping to avoid this. You really wanted to avoid this.

(If you really wanted to avoid it, you wouldn’t have fucking  _said_  anything.)

“David,” you say, harsh and not nearly as cordial as you planned on being. You can’t stop your mouth from curling down, can’t stop your teeth from grinding together.

You knew there was a chance he’d turn up at the Skaianet party with Crocker, of course, the two of them are lauded by the tabloids as near inseparable, but you hadn’t planned on him showing up here, at your work, leaving you nowhere to run and nothing to hide behind.

You’d never really planned on seeing him again at all. Ever, if you could help it.

Fate’s clearly got other plans.  
(You don’t believe in fate.

And even if you did, fate could suck a fucking dick right now.)

You remember reaching out to him in an office, cold winter light, four days before your eighteenth birthday. You remember his hand, always such cold fucking hands, warmed from the fire, hot through your shirt as he stopped you by the shoulder.

And against all odds, all your expectations and bitterness, he smiles, face lighting up, exactly how you always remembered him, all in an instant. “Dirk, fuck, is that really you?”

“Yup,” you say, and it burns in your throat, acid on the tongue. How can he act like this? After everything he did. After he left and changed his name and he never called, did he, he never fucking -

You hold out your hand. It does not shake. “ID, please.”

He is not buying it, gives you a look you haven’t seen in ages, quirked brow, slanted smile. “Seriously? After all that? Not even a ‘oh shit waddup’? I mean, look at you. Goddamn, you’re fucking huge. Uh. Tall. Really tall. Holy shit?”

You keep your expression even, raise an eyebrow. “That really the first thing you wanna say to me?”

“No,” Dave snaps on automatic, same as he ever was, hackles easy to raise, defense thrown up at a single wrong word. “That isn’t what - I didn’t mean to - That’s really...” He coughs, clears his throat. If you squint, you could almost see his ears turn red. “Do you wanna. Fuck, I dunno, get a drink or something? Play catch up together? It’s been years, hasn’t it?”

“Fourteen,” you say, don’t know why you bother. You imagine leaping over the counter. Maybe punching him in the face.

“Yeah, right it - fuck, fourteen?” He lets out a whistle but it falls flat, fails to make you smile. You grit your teeth against a proper scowl. “We could hit up a bar over in the Western district, probably. Bet there’s some early troll bars that’ll serve a couple’a wayward humans. I’ll pay any tabs you already got rollin’, of course, I ain’t nothin’ less than a gentleman.” He pauses a beat, adds, “If you drink, I mean. Of course.”

You stare at him blankly, feel a muscle jump in your jaw. “I’m working.”

“Oh.” You can just hear him blink, the way his face opens up again, just for a second. “Yeah. Right. Because. Working. Right.” He does dig out his ID eventually, and you shove the cigarettes across the counter without even glancing at his license. You never really needed it, and you both know that. Fucker pays with a hundred and you do not sneer. He seems to fumble for a moment there, uncertain in a way you’re not used to as you bag his shit up. You are taller than him, you note, and that. Surprises you. Shit, it really has been fourteen years. You were the same height, last you saw him.

“I could, uh,” Dave starts, stops. “I could -” He jumps when his phone rings, and watching him grapple for it is ridiculous, almost childish, and you soften, against your better judgment. He glances at the name, hits end call, and gives you another hopeful smile. You hate it. You resent it. You really,  _really_ could just punch this guy in the face. “Well if you want to talk. Later. I mean, if  _you_ want. I’d really, I’d like that a lot.” There’s something so sincere about the tip of his eyebrows, how they bunch together, ever so slightly, lower lip bitten, empty hand flexing at his side. For a second, he’s the same kid you always knew. “I know it’s been a really long time - wasn’t really planning on - well anyway, I can -”

The phone goes off again.

You roll your eyes. “Just pick it up, dude.”

The guilty look he gives as he does just that is impressive, considering the shades, and the growl, “ _What?_ ” into the phone is so the opposite of his television personality you’re almost impressed. There’s a little bit of David Strider left in there, after all. “Fuck you, no,” he says, and hangs up again, looks back up at you with a weak grin and an irritated brow. “Look, fuck, can I just - can I give you my card?” He drags it out of his pocket, wrinkled to the point of maiming, and then snatches it back before you can tell him no. “Wait, shit, that’s my agent. Lemme - do you have a pen?” When he looks up at you, you almost catch the color of his eyes over the rim of his shades, and your chest aches again.

“No shit,” you say, but you hand him one anyway.

He writes the same, grabs the pen with his right hand before hesitating and switching to his left. Heh. Dumb. It’s pathetic, what you feel sentimental about now, what you forget just as soon as remember.

And maybe that’s what does it, or maybe there was never any way you were going to deny this fucking idiot, familiar in all the worst ways, but when he hands you the card, you take it, and it’s the same ugly chicken scratch it’s always been, and it is hard, for a moment, for you to fight a smile.

“Don’t lose it,” he says sternly. You remember, _“Don’t tell mom, she’ll kill me if she finds out we did this,”_ you remember _“Christ, Dirk, again?”_ and you do not punch him in the face. “I’ll fuckin’ know if you do, you little shit.”  
“What are you gonna do, go through my trash,” you snort, and he makes a face. You make one back.

There is a five second lull where everything is fine, a quiet that could almost be

And he says, “So hey, listen, I -” right before his phone goes off again.

 You have no fucking clue who would call at three AM, but this time when he glances at it he grimaces openly, looks guilty as he gathers his snacks off the counter, pauses for a moment longer before the phone reminds him to pick the fuck up. He’s still apologizing as he walks backwards out the door, and you almost,  _almost_ laugh when he smacks straight into the ice cream freezer.

You don’t breathe until he’s gone, and you bend into yourself, hands gripping the counter, shaking, and you practically scramble to hide the card away as the bell rings again and your coworker wanders in.

She takes one look at you, says, “Humans,” with such vitriol it’s clear that you’re being dismissed, and shoos you out of the store without another word.

If you’re freaking out (are you? are you freaking out right now?) it doesn’t matter, or doesn’t stop her from leaving you on the back steps, fishing for your cigarettes and trying not to think about him because why would you. You wouldn’t. You don’t care.

He didn't care.

You don’t  _care._

You don’t give a single fucking shit, and you definitely don’t plan on calling (how could you, how could he expect you to call him after all this time) but the card burns a hole in your back pocket for the rest of your shift, and the bad feeling follows you all the way home.

 

  
You don’t manage to fall asleep when you get back to your apartment that morning, not even when you stumble into your bed and pull the covers over your head, shoes still on and name tag digging into your collarbone.

You aren’t freaking out.

Why would you?

Fuck him, fuck him for being here after all those years you spent

_It Doesn’t matter._

Wipe a hand down your face, squeeze your eyes closed, let yourself sleep, because it doesn’t fucking matter.

It isn’t like he owed you anything, you think, because of course he didn’t, you two were your own people, things changed, he didn’t need you, he got out and you  
Well you did follow for awhile, didn’t you.

It led you to Roxy, you remember, and you could never, for all her faults and all your bitching, never resent him for that.

Jesus (and you’re not even gonna ask who that fucking is, not today) you are so goddamn tired.

You lay under the blankets for a long while, thoughts spiraling, remembering when you learned how to break people’s fingers, remember the first time you broke your wrist, breaking your nose, blood on your school uniform, remember standing in the bathroom, gripping the sink til your hands went white.

Nosebleed, it had to have started with the fucking nosebleed.

You didn’t dream back then, did you.

Not yet.

You lose track of time, staring at your hand, the long scar that drags from the base of your thumb down to your wrist.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

You are not needy, by nature, but there is a second where you do consider calling Roxanne, or at least texting her. Something, anything to distract you, if only for a moment.

Cursed.

You have to be cursed.

You curl your hand in, watch the scar twist.

Fuck.

You’re not sleeping like this, and you really need another smoke. It won’t fix anything, never does, but the fresh air is good for you, probably. Or should be.

You stand on the roof alone and think, just for a moment, how familiar the whole thing is. The sound of the cracked pavement beneath your feet, the way the sun beats down on your back, fucking end of October and almost as bad as July, go goddamn figure.

Punishment, maybe. The Life Temple’s probably in dire need of fucking help, at this point, and if it doesn’t rain soon you know all your hard work with Roxy, just a week ago, will go down the shit-encrusted drain. Time really does fly, doesn’t it?

“I think that’s just supposed to be a saying, but there’s some truth to it, if you think about it.”

You flinch so hard you almost send your lighter flying, hands reaching for something that isn’t there. You press your nails into your palm, think _no_ , you don’t need a strife deck, nobody really uses them anymore, and  _you_ definitely do not need one, gods-a-fucking-bove you’re jumpy enough as is. You can’t imagine what would happen if you held a sword again. What a joke.

You hadn’t expected to see him again, not this soon, especially not now, not after David, and for a god of Time, his probably couldn’t be much worse.

You feel his eyes on you like needles up your spine, so you turn around to tell him to fuck off and

“Jesus fucking Christ,” makes its way out of your mouth before you can stop it. “So you really can fly.”

The kid stares at you like you’re a chicken with its head cut off for too long a minute to be casual. It’s almost unnerving, reflective black frames and mouth barely parted. It is also, in your opinion, completely unfair. He is, after all, the one wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. You consider going back inside. He might not follow you. You might be hallucinating. You don’t actually have to do this right now.

A joke.

Your life is a joke.

“Uh,” he finally says, looks down where he hovers, just about a foot off the roof. “Yeah, uh. Sorry. About that.” He touches down with ease, cape rising behind him for a beat, and you are overwhelmed with a sensation of sadness you cannot explain. You can really see him now, David, from the messy blonde hair to the shape of his nose. Fuck you, they’ve even got the same chin.

You don’t know how you never noticed. Maybe you didn’t want to. Maybe you thought, if you avoided all of it, if you didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t matter, because you never actually wanted to see David again, not really.

“What’s your name?” you ask, instead of something logical like, “how the fuck do you know where I live?”

He freezes at that, halfway through pulling a bag of chips from his sylladex. They wobble and tip, fall to the ground. You note, with amusement, that you hadn’t considered gods needed a dex at all. You don’t know what you’re expecting, but it’s not his cold, genuinely suspicious response. Something changes tangibly, and you’re not sure you’re supposed to notice, how the heat shifts and the air seems to stagnate. It feels, for a moment, like everything is frozen in place. “Why.”

You reckon maybe it’s not any of your business. It definitely isn’t. Or wouldn’t be, if he’d just leave you the fuck alone. But he won’t, and it’s been literal months, and you still have no clue what to call the guy. Maybe that’s rude. Okay, so it’s definitely rude. Fucking whatever. You offer a shrug, entirely informal, and pull a cigarette from your pack, take a moment to light it. “Do I need a reason?”

He presses his lips together, paper thin, and you see him rock forward on his toes, thoughtless, instinctual, so much like a kid you’re sad again, just for a moment. You wonder if they’re all like this. Children, really, at the base of it all. You pretend not to watch him as he edges closer, comes to stand just out of reach, same as always. There’s an easy six feet between you, but you  _feel_ it, palpable, know that if you moved, he’d be gone before you could blink. Jumpy. You wonder what made him like that. “Yes,” he says. “You do, actually. I mean, it’s pretty fuckin’ rude you haven’t asked before, now that I think about it, though I guess I, I never asked you either? Though that seems unfair. Obviously I fuckin’ know. That’s my job. I’m a god. I know shit. I’m not stalking you,” he snaps, when you inhale, open your mouth.

You almost-snort, bite your tongue to curb a smile. “That’s awful rich. It’s gettin’ a bit hard to turn around without bumping right fucking into you. Pretty fucked up hobby for a being with limitless time, if you ask me.” Okay, that was un-fucking-friendly.

“No one fucking asked you,” he huffs, but you can tell your dig got him, because he gnaws on his lip. “And I don’t... Look, it’s not fuckin’ stalking. It’s all just. Timing. Does that make sense?” He doesn’t wait for you to speak. “Okay, ugh, no it doesn’t, does it. That sounds dumb as hell. Listen, in my business, sometimes shit has to happen for what feels like no goddamn reason, okay? Rose has this whole thing about it, anyway, like. Uh.” He coughs lightly, seems embarrassed.

“Rules,” you say, arch an eyebrow. It isn’t that you don’t believe him. You just think it’s kinda pathetic, and maybe a little hilarious to see someone admit they’re clearly doing the opposite of what they’re supposed to.

“Guidelines,” he protests, then confesses. “We’re not really s’posed to meddle in the affairs of mortals. Or we try not to? Shit always gets loads more complicated if you mess with the timeline of earthkind, since we’re still not sure what the long-term effect of our interference would be, but you’re kind of the exemption, or more like, like an experiment? Since you’re already god-touched, and this is about as far as I can follow your timeline before it goes all...” He shrugs, waves his hand around vaguely.

Those sure are some words he just put in whatever order he felt like, huh.

“God.... touched,” you repeat slowly. As if that’s not the creepiest thing he could have possibly said to you.

He takes a second, head tilting, eyebrows bunching. “You don’t remember? You were hella fucking young back then, and it’s not really your fault. She didn’t know you’d be there. Dunno if you were even s’posed to be, and I’m pretty sure you threw her off guard.”

You remember then, and again, being six, hiding under a pew in a church, surrounded by rustbloods. The sound of bells, glass that shined like diamonds. A roll with wild black hair, curving horns and red-flecked eyes. “She a troll? God horns like -” You do a quite frankly silly gesture with both hands.

He smiles, small but genuine. “Aradia, yeah. She’s the best. Mostly. Uh. She’s kind of a death junkie, wouldn’t be surprised if she marked you with her weird fangirl shit from day one. But like I said, we don’t really know how the whole thing works, and the worst she could do is like, freeze you in time, maybe prevent you from aging. Probably. As Time players, we didn’t really do the whole fate thing.”

That’s a familiar tune, at least. “Please don’t fucking tell me fate is real.”

“I dunno,” he says, shrugs again. “Light’s really more the area for karmic circles and shit. Fortune and punishment, blah blah blah.”

You chew on that for a second, taking a drag. “So what, you’re sayin’ I’m some kind of divine bully victim?”

He hums, frowns thoughtfully. “It’s possible, I guess. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I dunno if Vriska actually had a hand in it but it’s more’n likely nah. She’s not really interested in humans past our friend circle, and I doubt that whatever luck you were born with would be enough for her to deviate her from her path of destruction across all of trollkind.”

You raise an eyebrow. This is just fuckin’. This is circus nonsense. “So that whole.” You flap a hand. “Arachnid’s Grip wives tale. That shit is real?”

He shrugs. “I don’t really know much about troll mythos.”

You snort, can’t mask a smile. “You sure you’re a god?”

He muffles a laugh. “Some days I’m not so sure.”

You consider that, looking at him again. Never stands up straight, does he, this kid. Familiar, in the worst ways, always. “Can’t be that bad. You see New Houston? You’re beloved, here. They don’t even know your fuckin’ name, and they still worship the shit out of you. That counts for something, right?” You don’t know about that. Society is hardly perfect. Things can always be improved upon. But you just kinda feel like the kid needs to hear it.

He stares at you, hard, and he’s either squinting through his shades or that’s a serious glare you’ve managed to dig up, seemingly for no goddamn reason. “You can’t tell anyone,” he says. Insists. Defensive, on edge.

You play along. “Tell them what?”

“My name,” he says, but softer, and there’s an inch of hesitation there. “I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell anyone.”

Well.

Alright, then.

You stare, try not to come across shitty when you say, “Who the fuck would I tell?”

Fail step one.

He does frown, then, mouth ticking down, just like David. “You never cared before.”

“It never mattered,” you say. “Still doesn’t, I guess. Just feels wrong, thinking of you as just some kid when you’re. You know.” You wave at the general area he occupies.

“So you don’t care, then,” he says. “Not really. You’re curious.”

It sounds like an accusation. You take a drag, think about your last conversation. “Reckon maybe I am. Just this once.”

That’s good enough for him, you guess, because he nods, goes quiet. It is odd, you think, that they both wear shades, him and David. Similar make, familiar shape. They could be fucked up twins, in another world. “It’s Dave,” he says carefully, but I don’t really want you to freak out about it.”

Of course as soon as he says that, you freak out about it.

Your breath hitches, brain stuttering to a stop, and you open your mouth to speak, find it so suddenly dry, tongue heavy, eyes burning, and you say, “Oh. Okay.”

What else could you say? And it’s like a release, mind unspooling like it hasn’t in years, like when you were young and you never slept because you couldn’t stop thinking, and your thoughts spin in circles, around and around like a drain, like a, like a, his name is Dave of course it’s Dave, you’ve always known it was Dave, haven’t you? You did know that, but you couldn’t have

known

that?

“It’s a common name,” he continues quickly. “S’the perk of being a god, y’know, getting your identity emblazoned forever across the honorary placronym of thousands of unfortunate children for centuries to come. We did try to stop them, earlier on, back when they were common knowledge and it wasn’t like, a big deal or whatever. But once the whole church/temple thing took off and we took a step back, it was kind of a moot point.” He (Dave, his name is Dave, but you knew that, didn’t you, of course you did, but you couldn’t have, could you, it’s just a coincidence) holds his bag of chips close to his chest, and you think he looks, for the first time, like he might be afraid of you.

And maybe he should be, with the way your hands have curled into fists, your jaw aching where your teeth grind together. It’s unreasonable for you to be angry about this. It’s not fair, it’s.

You feel cold and hot all at once, feel a tremor across your skin, your head so suddenly light, chest so suddenly tight.

Sick.

You feel sick.

You flick the cigarette away seconds before you puke, and you drop to one knee, manage to avoid getting it on your shoes at the last minute. That’d be a travesty, because you, you, you don’t actually care about these shoes, these pants, don’t you have a hundred pairs, all the same, identical for no other reason than efficiency? Or you don’t, or you did, but it doesn’t matter now because Dave, his name is Dave, just Dave, who the fuck would name their kid just Dave?

_You._

You, you,  _you_ would but you never did because you didn’t have

 you don’t have children, do you?

No of course not this is.

“Are you freaking out?” His voice pierces through the fog like a splinter through the skin and you suck in air, drag your arm across your mouth to wipe away the sick.

It’s not his fault. Of course it isn’t.

Breathe. Fuck, you need to remember to breathe.

“No,” you say, and your voice is glorious monotone. “I’m fine.”

He’s a kid. You can’t freak out on a kid you hardly know. God or not, it’s just not very fucking polite. You raised you better than that.

You inhale, spit on the cement. You should apologize, you guess. For making a scene.

You don’t.

You climb to your feet, stare at him wordlessly.

Dave, the guy, the god, the kid, stares back. What could you even say? There’s nothing that could change the way you feel, and it’s not. It’s not  _really_ his fault.

It’s like slow motion when he pulls open the bag of Doritos, like he’s waiting for you to. You don’t know. Do something. Nothing. You don’t know what he wants from you (that feeling hasn’t faded, you’re so sure he wants something, you can’t fucking tell _what_ ), and you don’t have anything to offer. When you don’t speak again, he shoves a few in his mouth, thinks about it, and then wiggles the bag at you half-heartedly, as if you didn’t just puke. It’s up your nose. All you can smell is copper. “You want some?”

You think it’s unfair that you keep calling him a kid when he’s not much shorter than you, but it is hard to take him seriously, gold-rimmed shades and deep red cape. It’s certainly an outfit. It’s not his fault he looks like David.

_“Even if y’all are, quite literally, made in our image.”_

It’s probably not his fault he looks like David.

“No,” you say after a moment, when you realize he’s still waiting, always just waiting on your words, like each thread of every conversation you’ll ever have is tight in your grasp. “I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” he says, tucks them under his arm and starts crunching away.

The tension between you does not dissipate, air stagnating again, anxiety and those little sparks of anger that flare up inside you like fire. But neither of you speak to correct it, nor move enough to let it dissolve. You suppose you’re waiting for his first move.

Though the reality is, you realize, he is probably waiting on yours, and you fish another cigarette free for lack of anything better to do.

The card falls out of your pocket, because of course it does. You should have thrown it away. You shouldn’t have taken it in the first place. What follows feels performative, robotic, bending at the knees, plucking it off the hot cement, inches away from your own vomit. It’s bright red, and you try not to think about that, short nails scraping the ground to get a grip, waves of nostalgia (and nausea) you can’t really fight. Hands raking pavement, shoes tar in the heat. The sound of metal, heat from above, heat from below. A siren wails in the distance, and you don’t feel anything at all. Peace. You’re supposed to be here. You were always supposed to be here. This city. This apartment. It’s your safe place, isn’t it, has been since you moved here.

The sun beats down on the back of your neck. You remember clutching a lukewarm can of store brand coke while you sat on a broken toolbox, shoes turning to gum, sun bearing down on you in the middle of the western Barkbeast Desert. Remember that sun-bleached hair, head bent under the hood, skin on his arms already gone red, remember asking -

“Are you gonna call him?”

It’s enough to shake you loose, but you almost drop it again, read over the crooked twos and ugly threes. _DAVID LALONDE_ , it reads. What a fucking joke. “No,” you say simply, don’t ask how he knows. Of course he fucking knows. Why wouldn’t he? He’s the god. Not you. You shove the card back where it came from, just in case you

Well you fucking won’t, will you? Cowardice, maybe. A cold place where your heart used to be, probably.

“Nah. Time to be spent on whims like that passed fourteen fucking years ago, and if he wanted to talk to me so damn bad, he coulda done it on his own.”

Dave (still weird so weird head spinning stomach churning weird) hums, eats another chip. The sound grates on your nerves. You watch, think about how fucked up it is that he found you here. You guess he coulda been like. Flying around or some shit. Happened to see you. He already said he wasn’t stalking you, not really. You guess that could’ve been a lie. Still odd. A whole goddamn world out there, and he hangs around New Houston like he.

Like he lives here, you guess.

The thought is more unsettling, you think, than it should be.

“You knew his name,” you say instead, because it’s bothering you. “I never had to say anything at all, did I?”

“It’s not stalking,” he says again, and you just sigh, wipe your clean hand across your brow.

Damn miracle you haven’t passed out yet, probably. You still feel that thrum under your skin, burning at you, coiled in your gut, crawling just under your skin like ants. Anger, unimaginable, unfair anger. He knew. Of course he knew.

“Are you mad at me?” he blurts suddenly, and that just  
short-circuits you completely.

You drop your hand, look at him. “What?”

“Because I -” He shifts a little, fingers twitching, curling so tight around the bag of chips you hear them break apart. You think again how much he looks like a kid. Almost an adult, at twenty-one, and you were, weren’t you? At his age. Angry and bitter and so fucked up by an unfair world. 

Fuck.

“No,” you lie, look away. You stare at the way the sun hits the building across the street, just so you don’t have to see his face. The uncertainty. The fear. He’s afraid of you. “No, I just. Probably need time, kid. To clear my head.”

“Oh,” he says, and it’s so small, crestfallen. “Yeah, uh, you need. Time. To. Right.”

“That isn’t what I -” you start, but it’s too angry, and by the time you turn back around, he’s already gone.

You stare down at the puddle of red between your feet.

_Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is somehow longer than all the others??? Hello???  
> Next time..... Holloween.....


	6. pinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is what you dream.
> 
> Also, let's go to a party!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello sorry i have been inactive, I got nipped by a oneshot bug so hard I wrote til my fingers fell off! I wouldn't worry about it though.  
> Anyway warnings for bloody yuck stuff, some light dream gore, and men being absolute idiots about stuff.  
> Tension. Wow.  
> Lightly dedicated to peonies for dealing with my cryptic bullshit, always. I love u

Here is what you dream: fingers frozen stiff, curved around the handle of a, a shovel, that’s right, because you were out in the driveway clearing a path, gloves soaked to the bone, scarf so tight around your neck you’re surprised your head didn’t pop off, and that’s almost a joke, isn’t it, it is, and you’ve never shoveled snow before, and it’s harder than it looks, barely fifteen the first time you saw anything quite like it, back inside and shivering, watching the fat white flakes pile high on the mailbox, face pressed to the window, reflection tired, so tired, circles dark to bruise, shades missing because she took them, didn’t she, heels clicking behind you on the hardwood floor, and she says, “ _I’m sure he’ll be okay,”_ and you don’t know if you believe her because you messed up, or you do believe her because you want to, or you don’t care, because you know that, of course he’ll be okay, because you’re always okay, and you are always in control.

 _“I ain’t worried,”_ you say, mechanical, someone else’s words on your lips, blood bubbling, dribbling down your chin, drowning, choking, gasping for air as you remember the rush of salt water flooding your nostrils, the first time you fell, remember your arms reaching up, up, up, mouth open to

You curse as your back hits the dirt, remember cold metal pressed to your neck, a foot on your chest and rocks, sharp and hot, digging into your back. You remember the first time you grabbed that blade, petulant, angry, no gloves yet, calluses already but nowhere to hide them, the way it slid across your flesh, red-slicked hand and pain a dull throb as you vaulted yourself up to your feet.

You dream and you remember standing in that alley, bloody nose, dragging up your, your

It was a sword, wasn’t it? It was a sword, a sword, and it was too big for your hands and you were ten, then twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, weren’t even supposed to be carrying a strife specibus not even sure it was legal, fuck, _fuck, IS THAT ALL HE CAN TEACH YOU? USELESS, WORTHLESS, YOU NEED TO BE BETTER._

You dream of salt and you dream of seaweed, stinging your nose, the cry of gulls, the way the crows would dive at you during the spring, because what better fucking place to make a nest than the top of an apartment building in Houston?

You sit on a futon and then you stand in a kitchen and puke in the sink, but it’s not your kitchen and not your sink, and you look at your hands, fingerless gloves, worn leather creased in familiar places, dirt-crusted fingernails because you were, you were gardening, weren’t you? Yes, that’s right.

Yes, that’s right you were

And you stand in the garden in the Maid’s temple and she smiles down at you from her pedestal, patient, maternal, teeth glistening jade in the early evening light. The flowers in her hair are carved so thin that they’re translucent, reflect green in fractal patterns across the faded stones of the garden path, and you stand before her, hand sliced open and knuckles bare, then bruised, then cut and worn from a fight, from when you had punched

Your shirt is warm and damp and you think _heat_ , you think _desert scrub_ ,  _brown and green and red,_ you think  _magma_.  _The screech of gears,_  you think,  _Do you have any_

 _fucking clue what you’re doing over there?”_ as you dust off your hands on your pants and tuck the manual under your arm, elbow him out of the way. And he laughs, you think, you remember how he laughed as you

sat down at the table across from him, spoon in his right hand, pen in his left, remember the way he smirked when people called him a demon, called him a freak, called him a liar. You remember his smile, how it curled from the left side first, crooked, a flash of teeth, eyebrows up, a single dimple, right-hand side. You remember and you dream and in your dreams he always smiles at you, all the way up to his eyes, because he hadn’t always worn shades, of course, of course not, and you take a deep breath, and you taste blood, and you remember that space between the base of your ribs, like a slot fit for a key, just one key, and you breathe out your nose, smell copper, curl your hands into fists and let the shards dig in, feel them turn to pixelated dust, pain sparking like needles in your fingertips, the taste of batteries stuck to your tongue, burnt steak in your nostrils.

You shudder and you aren’t cold, or you are cold, fingers numb, muscles stiff, and you feel yourself start to unwind, bit by bit, flaws in the code, in your code. You cough, you choke, and then you

 

  
wake up on the floor, heaving and panting and you roll over, vomit bile, nothing but bile because you never did eat, last night, did you, rolling hard and too busy spinning to remember to

Fuck, what time is it?

You grapple half blind in the afternoon sun, piercing through the window shades, hand pawing across the floor til you find your phone, drag it close enough to focus your eyes.

Fuck your life running, it’s already four. You’ve missed two calls from Roxanne, and you’re supposed to be at her place by six with a costume and, and some other shit probably. You don’t know. Her instructions were pretty vague.

Gods in the dark, she’s going to fucking kill you.

  
“-isn’t actually such a big deal, really. Of course things don’t work out every time, but Doc promises her sister is soooooo nice, and she has a son, too, probably a lil older than us, you know?”

You rub your face, try not to make it clear you weren’t paying attention. You’ve got a headache building behind your eyes and you already don’t want to do this. “Who are we tryin’ to set up here?” you ask weakly.

“No one!” she snaps defensively, swats at you with a grey-painted hand. You wince, carefully keep both your hands on the wheel, and hope desperately that your shitty costume stays together long enough to make it through the party.

You haven’t dressed for Holloween since you were a kid, despite your interest in the market as a whole; you just released a new short film last night before work, and you’d rather be home, watching the numbers rise steadily instead of sitting here, in Roxy’s rental car in a dog-eared headband and a scratch across your eye, on a way to party at a place you don’t want to step foot inside.

There’s just something about the air, you can’t explain it. Skaianet designs beautiful buildings, sleek and white and secure as all get out, usually with surrounding research hubs and an extensive commute network. Impressive rail system, really.  
But you just.

Can’t stand the thought of

Of working there, of being inside, being trapped, being surrounded on all sides by all that -

They do good in the world, they do, you know, but you can’t shake the feeling.

Just gets in your head, you guess.

Like nostalgia, like you know something about all of it, the whole thing, you just can’t put your finger on it. You have never felt at ease in those labs, always looking over your shoulder, always feeling the tick of a clock that you don’t know how to stop and

Anyway.

It’s weird. You hate it. So you avoid it. Simple as that.

Roxy doesn’t share your opinion, and you guess you can’t be mad at her for it. She’s been working for them since she was sixteen, still interning, no degree yet but a full ride secured. You have never resented that privilege, not in any meaningful way - it’s a life you could have had, if you wanted, if you didn’t get hives at the thought. Far as you’re concerned, she deserves the world, and you’d give it to her on a silver fucking platter, if you could.

Or if she’d just stop fucking punching you, for at least five minutes.

“This is stupid,” you tell her, pulling into the parking lot. “We’re adults. Why are you going to a costume party? Why are we doing this?”

“Because it’s _fun_ , Dirkleton,” she huffs, batting at you again, lightly this time. “Don’t be a downer. Look at you, Mr. Fancypants Puppet man and you couldn’t even manage a proper goddamn costume. You think this is a joke? You think we don’t ride or die here? Shaking my head, dude. I am so sincerely disappointed.”

You roll your eyes, unaffected. This is almost exactly the same godforsaken speech from earlier today, and you aren’t looking to rehash the conversation. “S’all I had, Rox. And also, I don’t give a shit. It’s a pointless holiday.”

“So is Candlenights, and everybody loves that!” she huffs, pulling out her phone to check the time. “You’re just bein’ a stick in the mud, same as always."

You put the car in park, let your head fall back against the rest, count the cars. Too many for your liking. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” she says, and she’s smiling. “But only cuz I made you.” Roxy reaches out and pats the corner of your black shirt. You do not snap at the distinct handprint she leaves behind. “But you’re trying, and I appreciate that.”

“Fuck off,” you snort, but you’re almost smiling as you unbuckle your seatbelt.

 

  
You feel like shit.

You’re standing in the corner at a party in a building you hate surrounded by people you don’t know and you feel like shit. The crowd swarms, all species accounted for, and there is no obvious escape route.

You’ve never dealt well with that kind of thing. Crowds, large groups of people, hazard, all that, too many opinions, too much energy. Annoying. Unnecessary.

You cling to your cup of water because you can’t drink beer, even if you wanted to, and wish you’d had the foresight to grab something else. A coke, a juice. Something. Fuck. You could probably handle a beer or two, truthfully. If it weren’t for Roxy, you’d consider going back towards the coolers - it’s always taken a lot to get you drunk. You’ve never been good at getting out of your own head, thoughts moving in strings and loops, like 9/8 time, shaking foot, bitten fingers, stupid and overactive and you hate it, you hate it, and you are tired and you’re annoyed and Roxy, fuckin’ bless her to hell and back, is nowhere to be found.

So you grimace, drink from your cup, and wait for.

You don’t know.

Her to find you, you guess. She was practically chompin’ at the bit to introduce you to her little friend group, though fuck if you know why. You don’t really give a shit about any of that, and maybe she doesn’t either, because she noped the fuck out as soon as you hit the refreshment table, and you’ve been alone ever since.

Maybe you can just wait in the parking lot. She’ll find you later and be mad about it, sure, but it’d probably be a fuck ton more bearable than this horseshit.

“Now, I may not have eyes the way I used to,” says a voice that’s warm as toast, soft and syrupy, high-pitched sweetness, “but I rather hope that’s water you’re drinking there, son, and I didn’t just watch you down a plastic cup of spirits straight, no chaser.”

There is usually a moment when people first approach you that you freeze, mannequin-like, as if standing still long enough will genuinely convince them you’re not real.

You don’t get that, here. There is a pause, sure, a second in time where you almost jump, don’t expect her voice, don’t expect it to drip over your nerves like honey, don’t expect to look up and see an old woman with warm brown skin and eyes that shine like the sky on a clear day. There is a pang inside your chest you cannot explain, something that crawls up your throat and chokes you, for one second, then two, and you just. Stare, like an absolute creep.

There is something to her, this woman, with the way her hair, silver peppered black, curls around her face in gentle waves, short, sensible, how her eyes crinkle at the corners and the light just catches the edge of her gold-rimmed spectacles.

She’s wearing a very silly ruffle around her neck, and you see the jester’s hat, flinch before you mean to, don’t know why.

“Uh,” you say, because you didn’t learn to be no fucking rude ass to your elders, or at least ones not steeped in passive-aggressive scare tactics. “Yeah, it’s. Water.”

“Good boy,” she praises, beams at you. “Playing chauffeur tonight, are we? Bold choice. These things run quite long, and I daresay you’ll be snoozing by the end of it. I’ll get you a coffee, shall I?” She asks, but she doesn’t wait for your reply, just gently squeezes your arm in a gesture that is achingly familiar before she shuffles off without another word.

Well that just.

Happened.

You watch her disappear into the crowd, hat jingling along before it gets swallowed, and you don’t really move again until it’s gone.

She reminded you of someone, you think, but you just can’t, for the life of you, remember who.

Not your mother (with her stark white hair, her acid green eyes, fuck, maybe that’s why you - well you’re not afraid but maybe that’s why you don’t like English, fuck, ain’t that a trip) but maybe someone else’s, maybe someone kind’s, someone else who just ain’t you.

Any kid would be lucky, to have a mother like that.

IF she was real, and you’re not hallucinating. Again. Wouldn’t be much of a surprise, at this point, given your apparent proximity to a literal god and your extremely strained relationship with him at this moment.

Unfair to unload on him, probably. He’s just a kid (when you are over thirty, everyone is just a kid - law of the land, you don’t make the rules okay) and he didn’t -

Actually fuck him, he  _did_ know about your shit with Dave. He knew all about your fucked up tragic backstory and he didn’t even warn you, didn’t fuckin’ bother.

Fuck.

\- _is about as far as I can follow your timeline before it goes all..._

Shit. 

Are you dying?

Again?

Wait you didn’t

What the fuck?

You didn’t die before, you - sure, you had a tough go, growing up and sure, shit was rough but you never.

Gods, did someone spike your drink? Who the fuck spikes _water_?

The old bat?

Nah, she never got close enough, and she wouldn’t - well you don’t know her but you can just.

Ugh. Bluh.

You’re fucking losing it.

You flex your hand to test it, pop your joints in each finger. It doesn’t hurt, same release as always, but nothing new, nothing mind-blowing.

So maybe you’re not drugged. Maybe you’re just having a run-of-the-mill session of -

You can’t be mad at the kid.

Fine. Okay. Whatever. May as well ride it out.

But you seriously need some fresh air.

There is something messed up in your DNA, and you know that, have always been able to tell, have always had this feeling that something is just. Off with you.  
And you can tell from the minute you step into the crowd, how they part for you like water, a living breathing organism so subconsciously desperate to get away from you they don’t even look up.

Maybe it’s because you’re so tall.

Maybe you just look pissed off.

Maybe you _are_ -

You aren’t mad. It wouldn’t be fair. You have no right to be mad. This is all your fault.

You never should have let it get this bad.

You stumble out into the overly large research garden and think fuck, finally some peace and goddamn quiet.

It isn’t empty, really, a few couples milling around, some consorts in lab coats carrying shit back and forth (it’s late, but you ain’t telling them that - iguanas can be stubborn, a little mean, but they’re hard workers, and you admire that) but there’s space, and you can finally breathe.

It ain’t like you’re the town shut-in, you do honest work, but you aren’t really the social type. People just tend towards avoiding you, like it’s automatic, like they don’t realize they’re doing it at all.

Honestly, good. For the better. You kinda like it that way. It makes for a clean break, when things go sour, and it means you find a little section of the walkway to yourself with no one around but you, yourself, and your goddamn cup of water.

You pour it out in a bush, toss the plastic further. The perfect crime. No one will ever know.

There are so many better things you could be doing, you think, watching a troll with tall horns drag a giggling human after them into the garden proper.

Gods.

These people are supposed to be the world’s leading scientists.

This is ridiculous.

“Are you supposed to be some kind of fucking furry?” a voice slurs, dipping low into an old drawl that makes you freeze up, mask building itself back up as you turn your head a millimeter to see -

“David.”

He isn’t wearing a costume, just a suit, oilslick black and perfectly tailored, blood red tie and hair so delicately brushed that it looks. Fake. Everything about him is TV perfect and it all looks fake.

You always hated that.

He cracks a grin and it’s like the act fades away, just for a moment, shoulders loose and sloppy, eyebrows up, cheek dimpling, so human again, as if nothing ever changed. And then he stumbles, stupid, trips over his own two feet for no goddamn reason, and you catch him by the wrist, get a whiff of his breath as he leans in.

Sigh.

Of fucking course.

“How much have you been drinking?” you gripe, pull him til he’s balanced upright properly. “You smell like a bottle’a goddamn rubbing alcohol.”

“Not that much,” he murmurs, voice so suddenly soft, so quiet. Your shades clack against each other lightly, make you flinch a half beat to the right, and you realize you’re still holding onto him, that you’re inches apart. You let go and he rocks back, then towards you again. “Hey, wait -”

You step away in a moment of - what? Panic? Fuck that. You know this dude. What could you possibly have to fear from him except secondhand embarrassment?

“Bullshit not that much,” you say, think you manage to sound appropriately judgmental.

He pushes his bottom lip out, pouting like a child. It reminds you, insanely, of Roxy. You think you wouldn’t even be humoring him so much if you weren’t thinking of the time god, lining up their faces in your mind, splitting the differences between them.

They are far fewer than you are comfortable with.

The thought does not put you at ease.

“Aw, c’mon Dirk, play along,” Dave says lightly, offers another smile. He doesn’t sway quite as much, all on his own. “I’m not that drunk. You’re just boring, same lil stick in the mud you’ve always been.”

It’s annoying that he and Roxy can be so similar, worlds and worlds apart, and you try not to snap, can’t help but frown.

“Maybe,” you sigh, look away. Out over the garden, neat rows of trees and wild hedges, count heads, balloons, bushes, and when you run out, fence posts. Anywhere but him. Anyone but him.

“Dirk,” he says, and you hate how his voice catches, like he’s afraid of you (and why shouldn’t he be, after what you did, you did, but you didn’t  _do_ anything, did you, no of course not) like you’re a

Like you’re a,

“Can’t you just go back inside and leave me alone?” you say, maybe a little desperate, definitely a little hysterical.

“Uh,” he scoffs. “No? I’ve been lookin’ for you everywhere, dude. For a fucking beanpole, you’re kind of impossible to track down. Roxanne  told me you weren’t out here. She was super obviously lying, it was just. Absolutely terrible. Dunno if you’ve met her when she’s tipsy but the gal is a serious goofball.”

“Tipsy sounds far-fetched,” you say, but if he’s telling the truth, it’s some measure of relief. You cannot handle her when she’s drunk off her ass. No one can. Kinda hard, when she can lift you over her head.

He shrugs. “I ditched her with my sister and came to find you. Duh.”

You look over at him sharply. “You don’t have a sister.”

“ _Didn't_ ,” he says coyly, wiggles his eyebrows. “S’technically my cousin, remember her? Dumbass uncle, snooty as shit aunt?”

Of course you do.

“Vaguely.”

“Right so she basically ditched about the same time I did. Uh.” He winces, and he knows, you think he might genuinely _know_ , fuck, fuck - “and anyway, we basically adopted each other, lived together, took on the world, that whole shebang. School wouldn’t have been much without Rose.” He smiles, and it’s soft, fond. “Wouldn’t be much of anything at all.”

Of course you had known when he changed his name, you weren’t dumb, you knew the basics, but this is. You cannot open your mouth.

What the fuck are you doing?

“That’s rich.”

 _Shit_.

“Coming from you.”

 _Fuck_.

He stops, opens his mouth. “Wh--”

“Christ, Dave,” you say, hate how emotion pushes its way through, “you never even - wouldn’t have taken the time to -” You stop, grind your teeth. _Fuck this_. Fuck him. You can’t take this horseshit anymore, this charade, this little game where both of you are okay because you - It doesn’t matter. You turn to walk away. You won’t do this. Not in front of other people. Not with him. “It doesn’t matter. Just fuck off already.”

“Bullshit, yes it does.” He snags you by the hand and you freeze, feel all your muscles pull tense, feel the energy vibrate from your shoulder down to your fingertips.

“Let go,” you say quietly.

“Or what?” he snorts.

People are staring.

Fuck.

Gods  _damn_ this guy.

“Or I’ll punch you,” you say, voice deadly calm, deadly serious.

What are you doing? Why are you letting him?

Gods above, he still has the callus on his thumb, doesn’t he, you can feel it dig into your palm.

He frowns. “Dirk, listen, I didn’t mean to - I still want - I wouldn’t mind if we sat down, y’know? We can talk about - it isn’t -”

“Let go,” you repeat.

Dave doesn’t let go, scowling now, and it’s still pretty, everything about him manufactured and genuine, all rolled into one. He was made for this. It suits him. You resent it. “You’re still such a fucking BRAT -”

“And you’re an egomaniac,” you scoff.

“Wow, rich comin’ from you,” he drawls, raising an eyebrow.

“You’d know all about rich, wouldn’t you, self-made man,” you spit back, and you watch his expression darken.

“Fuck you,” he says, and you’re disgustingly satisfied in that moment, to see the David Strider you knew growing up, the anger that always simmered just below the surface, the ugly way he can move his face. He’s quick to correct it, like he’s surprised it happened in the first place. “Wait, I -”

You shake him off, turn to storm back inside when he grabs you by the wrist, hard, desperate.

“I know you miss me,” he blurts, and that’s it.

That’s enough that’s it you’re done.

You rear back and sucker punch him right there in the garden, full force non-dominant hand.

He’s lucky he was holding your left, is all you think, as he goes down like a sack of bricks, and then you’re gone.

 

Okay so you’re not completely gone.

You’re hiding in a bathroom.

Hiding might be a little dramatic. You’re moping in a bathroom. Washing your hands, trying not to look at yourself in the mirror.

Christ, what were you thinking? That shit is gonna be all over the tabloids tomorrow, and who even knows what the fuck havoc THAT will drag into your shitty life.

You splash water on your face, tell yourself it’s okay to breathe.

Except it’s not fucking okay, because you just freaked the fuck out in front of a bunch of random strangers and everyone’s going to know.

You haven’t messed up this bad since _high school_. Definitely haven’t.

Panicked isn’t the right word.

You’re not just anxious, you’re not a fast-beating heart and sweaty palms.

It’s so much more than that. Anger, just below the surface, frustration, indignation.

A mess.

You’re a mess, you think, holding the edge of the sink, looking up in the mirror. Shades tinted orange, a joke, something like a mockery, and you don’t know why you play with him, why you follow along with the rules of whatever fucked up game he might be playing.

Shit.

You rip them off, tuck them into your back pocket. You don’t need reminders of

Well you just don’t.

“Roxanne is looking for you, you know,” someone says, and you jerk so hard you imagine you nearly rip the sink from the wall.

It isn’t that you’re surprised Jade English would wander into the men’s room unannounced, or at all. It’s just that you kinda wished she hadn’t, anyways.

You turn your head a half inch to see -

Well she’s wearing a lab coat, same as usual, all her long ass hair rolled and pinned into a bun, her giant glasses only emphasizing the size and shine of her big green eyes.

If this were a schoolyard, you’d shove her down and call her a geek.

If she weren’t like, at least twenty years older than you, or something.

There is something to her that reminds you of a ghost, and it infuriates you that you can’t remember why.

“Don’t know if you can still read, what  with those enormous specs’a yours,” you drawl, voice forced even, “but this is the men’s room.”

“Oh,” she says lightly. Then, “Oh! You’re being rude on purpose, okay.” She smiles, eyes scrunching up at the corners, and you think of the other woman, dazzling eyes and steel-toned hair. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much. This level is off limits for most low-level employees. Only top security clearance past floor ten.” She tips her head to the side. “Kind of impressive you managed to slip by at all! You never cease to amaze me, Dirk Strider!”

You think back to your dash up the elevator, how you had slapped your hand on the pad and smashed a random button. You shrug. “Guess it ain’t that smart.”

“Hm.” Her smile doesn’t falter. It’s rare to catch her frown, Jade Harley.

_No._

_What?_

English.

Right.

“It  _is_ an older building. I suppose it might just be time to call in the head of the security systems, have him take a look over all this. I’ll have to pester my brother about that, won’t I?” She winks.

You scowl. Her brother. Not Crocker. The other one. He - well. Your mess with that was rather short-lived, wasn’t it? “Old man Harley ain’t know up from down and we both know it,” you say, mean it, just a little more than usual. You cross around the far side of her, towards the hand driers. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“A mad scientist,” English says, delighted, wiggles her fingers and eyebrows. “Great, right? It’s almost like I was born to play the role!”

“I’ll say,” you mutter, wiping your hands off on your jeans to get them the rest of the way, start to circle around her and towards the door. Better to get out before you - or she, you don’t know - say or do something weird. On accident.

“He does miss you, you know,” she calls instead, as you touch the metal frame. 

You freeze, suck in air. You can’t snap at an old woman. Not even a cryptic one who always knows shit. “It doesn’t matter,” you say instead.

“It does,” Jade says lightly. “It does to you, and to him. He’s not always the quickest on the draw, Dietrich, you should give him a break before you ruin things for good.”

“Don’t call me that,” you say, and there are a hundred things you’d rather say, but you don’t, you can’t, not right here, not right now.

“What would you have me call you instead, Mr. Strider?” she asks, tilts her head again, smile blithe, strangely threatening, same as always.

“I’d rather you didn’t call me anything at all,” you grunt, shoving the door open. “I’m going to find Roxanne.”

And then, because this is just a pattern, isn’t it, this is how your life will go,

you run away.

 

 

  
Here is what you dream: fingers frozen stiff, curved around the handle of a shovel, pants soaked to the knee, teeth chattering, out in the driveway clearing a path, sixteen the first time you

were sat down on that couch in a house in the suburbs in a state you never cared about, staring at the floor while someone told you, “it’s going to be okay,” and you didn’t say anything at all, hands curled into the fabric of your pants, heart slamming in your chest because  _He was right he was right he was right_ of course he was right you could trust him couldn’t you and you were so young, but not young enough, you didn’t have time for this, you didn’t have the time, you were

barely fifteen the first time you saw snow, gloves soaked to the bone and suitcase caught in a drift, reaching to knock, desperate, maybe, or calm, because you were

watching the fat flakes pile high on the mail box, face nearly pressed to the window, skin bleached of all freckles, circles dark enough to bruise, shades missing, because she took them, didn’t she, her heels click click clicking across the floor behind you, and she says “I’m sure he’ll be okay,” and you don’t believe her, because you’re here, aren’t you, and in that way he’ll never be okay, and that is exactly how it has to be.

You drown in your own blood, heavy and red and thick on your tongue as you choke and you breathe and you ache and you don’t die, not yet, it’s never as fast as they say it’ll be. You sigh out blood and breathe in salt water and all you see is your arms reaching up, water murky shades of blues and greens, cold, cold water, the smell of 

burnt steak, shards of glass in your fingers, crushed into pixel dust, failure, agony, wanting to go

home, sitting on the couch again, foot jittering, anxiety, irritation, you don’t have time for this, you have to train, you need to be better, you need to be _FASTER BETTER STRONGER BETTER MORE,_ and that’s it, isn’t it, that’s the joke, you need to be better so he can be the best, and you aren’t scared, you aren’t scared at all, not even when she takes your hands, kneels before you, and says _“it's okay to be afraid,”_ and her eyes shine like the sky over Houston (New Houston?) and she reminds you of, of the Maid, doesn’t she?

A mother’s smile, curved in jade, open hands, open heart, dirt under your nails, brown, then red like blood, like desert sands.

Are you dying?

You must be, you must be, and you breathe in again, burnt stake, holding a red box, a tool box, fixing a car, fourteen and up to your elbows in oil and grease, shirt stuck to the skin, fingers nimble, then curved around a shovel, and then they’re curled around a sword, and you feel it crush to dust under your touch, burnt steak, burnt steak but you don’t know what that _means_ , and you laugh, insanely, desperately, pixels in your hands, ozone burning your nostrils, unraveling, still, unspooling in second and inches.

You aren’t meant to die like this, you think, because this is not your -

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking  _kidding_ me.”

You turn around and see yourself at sixteen, purple and pink pajamas drenched in blood, head (quite literally) in his hands, and then you

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)  
> Until next time, kids!


	7. dial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hello it's been so long I'm so sorry nano ate me alive and i made strange and poor choices)  
> This chapter is a continuation of last chapter and therefore is shorter! pardon my dust while I settle back in here  
> Cw for gorey dream shit and disjointed thoughts blah blah you're still here, aren't you?

wake up on the floor of your bedroom with your phone stuck to your skin, gasping for air, flooded lungs and a head full of cotton.

You press your hand to your chest, heart slamming so hard against your rib cage it nearly shakes, and you try to remember what it feels like to breathe.

And you,

and you,

can’t remember what happened.

Don’t really remember getting home, vague thoughts of slamming your hip into the door handle, kicking out of your shoes, dragging your shirt over your head and sending the little felt ears flying against the wall.

You don’t remember going to your room.

You definitely don’t remember falling asleep.

Fuck.

Wipe a hand down your face, try to remember. Don’t. Breathe.

Shit.

Your phone hasn’t died yet, thank fuck, and you grimace when you see the missed calls, the list of notifications.

You missed your shift at the garage.

That doesn’t really matter, of course, because fuck you, Roxy’s going to murder you.

There’s no easy way to deal with this.

She’s gonna pissed no matter what, you may as well own up to it.

  
DS: hey.  
DS: sorry about last night.  
DS: i really didn’t want to fuckin’ go rox, but i didn’t mean to leave you like that.  
DS: i don’t know what i was thinking, i knew i didn’t want to see him again.  
DS: but i shouldn’t have made that your problem.  
DS: so sorry, i guess, is what i’m really trying to say.  
DS: again.  
DS: obviously.  
RL: Dirk oh thank gods there u r!!!!  
RL: You werent answering holy shit I was so worried  
DS: why the fuck would you be worried about me.  
RL: Ummmmm did you actually read anything I sent u???  
DS: beyond the drunk “where TF r u???”s?  
DS: no obviously not.  
DS: i’d need an hour to even translate.  
RL: Lol ur such a dick  
RL: Im fine btw Im at Englishs hotel rn with her sister  
RL: Shes soooooo cute Dirk u would like her so much  
RL: She says hi!!  
RL: I think u met at the party! :)  
DS: i don’t really remember.  
RL: O yeah u dont like the party people part as much huh  
RL: Smh cant believe u ditched me  
DS: rox, i really am so fucking sorry.  
RL: Ya I know Im not actually mad  
RL: Maybe a lil hungover  
RL: Or I was until this incredible lady made me BREKKIES!!!  
RL: Brekkies Dirk  
RL: Hold onto ur butt I think I may be in genuine fucking love rn  
RL: Oh god u really would love her  
DS: rox this is great and all, don’t get me wrong.  
DS: you know a man treasures his fuckin’ brekkies.  
DS: however, i think you’ve probably overstayed your welcome there.  
RL: Bullshit whens the last time you actually ate before 1 in the ampm  
DS: shut up.  
DS: look, if you just get me the address i’ll come pick you up.  
DS: i think i took the car last night.  
DS: or at least your keys are in my dex.  
RL: You dont remember???  
DS: i don’t remember a lot of shit a lot of the time.  
DS: even on a normal day that would hardly make the list.  
RL: Ok well no Im actually cool here its probably better you dont come  
RL: Maybe try n lay low for a bit actually  
DS: what why.  
RL: Ugh you never listen!  
RL: You punched Dave Lalonde Dirk!!  
RL: In the FACE!!!!!!  
DS: oh yeah. that.  
RL: Its all over the Skaianet feeds! They even talked abt it on the Trollday Show n everything  
DS: jesus christ.  
RL: Um  
RL: Are we just saying names of things now?  
DS: fuck.  
DS: no.  
DS: ok give me a minute just,  
DS: text me the address and i’ll be there in twenty.  
RL: :\  
RL: Do u really think this is a good idea??  
DS: no obviously fucking not.  
DS: but it’s kind of late to go back now.  
DS: i cannot fucking believe i have to deal with this.

 

Go figure Roxanne would find herself the tallest, most expensive fucking building in the whole downtown district, and of course you'd look out of place, rumpled black shirt and jeans with a tear in the knee that you keep forgetting to patch. You will, of course, one day. When you have time.

The valet takes the keys with a delicate smile, and you give a nervous upward turn of the lips. You do not pride yourself on exceptional customer service, and you think it shows now, more than ever.

If you didn't have a headache before, stepping through the doors and being met with a brilliant chandelier definitely makes things worse.

"Oh for fuck's sake," you sigh, rub at your eyes where they ache from lack of sleep. It's not particularly friendly, and definitely not polite.

But Skaianet and the overt use of money as a whole just. Really grinds your fucking gears.

"Dirk!"

Roxy looks no worse for the wear as she clickity clacks across the lobby towards you in a dress you don’t recognize, lilac and slinky, waving her arms and grinning her hundred-watt smile like she couldn’t be more pleased to have you.

Right until she really takes you in, and it slides off her face like rotten meat off the bone.

“Oh gods,” she says, striding forward and snatching up your wrist before you can turn away. “Let me see your fucking hand.”

“I’m fine,” you mumble, embarrassed when she draws you closer, right where everyone and their goddamn lusus can see. This is incredibly fucking pale, and you’re stood in the middle of one of the most famous hotels in the Eastern hive district. You should both be ashamed.

You accidentally make eye contact with a carapacian who is loading up a cart, and he stutters, panics, and flees, dragging his luggage behind him.

Well.

You guess you deserve that.

Roxanne clucks her tongue, but satisfied with the lack of damage, releases you. “Okay, okay, let’s just. Go upstairs, I guess.” She sighs, rolls her eyes so far you’re surprised they don’t make a full 360. “It’s about time you meet her, anyway. I think you’ve kept her waiting long enough, don’t you?”

You don’t complain because the second she takes your hand again, drags you away towards the elevators, fingers laced, there is a sense of calm that settles over you. Her presence, the anonymity that surrounds her like a veil, like shadows folded over each other to keep both of you hidden. You’ve always found that soothing. Time apart hasn’t changed that.

You don’t know why they’d give her a key card when it’s been one fucking night, but somebody obviously did, and she wiggles it at you before punching in a number that takes you up into the suites. Somehow, you’re not even surprised.

“What’s the point of me even coming up here,” you say as she leads you down the corridor, lit in soft yellow, extraneous in a way you’re used to seeing in old photos of New Prospit. It’s soothing, after the harsh sun; you didn’t bring a pair of shades, didn’t even think to until you’d already left. “Can we please just get your shit and go?”

“No,” she laughs at you. Her grip on your hand has gone from playful and comforting to so tight you’re not sure you could pull away, even if you wanted to.

“Why,” you grouse.

“Becauuuuusse, we’re being  _polite_ , Dirkleton,” she chides. “Have some fuckin’ manners.” Roxanne may only be one year older, but she has a tendency towards treating you like an annoying younger sibling at times. You suppose you deserve it. She looks back over her shoulder at you with a playful smile and you,

have this moment of disconnect, where you imagine her younger, so much younger, gripping the straps of a backpack and saying, _“You’ve never ridden a plane before??”_

You flinch back from it before you can help yourself, the two of you stuttering to a pause as a headache forms, just behind your eyes.

You've ridden a plane, of course you have, you, you live in New York for that time, always so fucking cold, always so fucking angry, weren't you, shit, and it was,

“Dirk?” she asks, worry edging her voice that you can’t help but feel you do not deserve.

“Fine,” you say, shrug her away. What are you doing? You're in public, Jesus Christ. “Just - a headache. Probably dehydrated, s’all.” You feel sick all over again, like you’re hungover, like you spent the night drinking or, or something. Anything else. You want to go home.

“Come on, darling,” she murmurs, so unlike herself, tone soft, almost motherly in a way that’s comforting, something you can't - don’t recognize. “Let’s - we’ll get some food in you, alright?”

You grunt, rub at your eyes, but you follow, albeit hesitantly.

“I’m back,” she calls when she shoulders the door open, holding it for you. “Sorry it took so long, you know how slow those elevators can be!”

You spare a glance for the room, the same Prospitan decor, yellow and pale gold, laced and glittering, go fuckin’ figure. Carapacian decor has a way of making everyone feel like royalty, banded stripes and complicated swirling designs carved into the wooden furniture. It looks like a palace in here, of course it does, and then your eyes wander to the kitchen and you freeze.

You have another moment that feels like deja vu, that feels like a wire hooked to your stomach, something trying to pull loose, but it's stuck, something is STUCK.

Silver hair, still peppered black, curls around her face in gentle waves, short and sensible, eyes that shine like the sea and gold-rimmed spectacles that catch the light in a way that can only be described as inviting.

She’s wearing an apron, worn and blue, and you choke for a reason you cannot fucking explain.

“Oh, there you are,” she says, in a voice that feels like coming home, eyes crinkling, a cheerful grin on a friendly face. “We were beginning to worry if we might ever see you at all!”

“Uh,” you manage, but Roxy grabs your arm, stops just short of lifting you off the floor as she guides you over to a chair.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says in a rush. “He’s feelin’ kinda yucky, I don’t know how to help him lately, it’s like it never ends.”

“Fuck you,” you say, but you’re fighting against nausea as it threatens to turn your stomach. You weren’t sick when you left your house, not even for the worry that a pap might find or stop you. You never had to think about it, as a kid, with eyes like yours.

You’re pretty sure they were afraid of you.

Probably be afraid of David, too, if they ever got a glance at those peepers he’s packin’.

Fucking fake-ass moron.

Groan.

Why are you still so mad?

“Please don’t pass out before I've had time to prepare you at least a little something,” the woman, not English, you don’t think, not quite fitting, but her -

sister?

Maybe, you don’t remember, that’s what Roxanne had said, ain’t it? Sister.

“Ain’t tryin’, ma’am,” you mutter, let your face drop into your hands.

There’s familiarity to this whole - to all of it, to everything, and you feel sick for it, feel it like a memory, feel it like something trying to crawl out your throat.

“So polite,” she says, and you don’t know her name, but you want to, or you don’t, or you did, maybe, thought you did. "I'm always astounded at how stubbornly the Texan accent can going. It's certainly endearing to a point, don't you think, Roxanne?"

"It's funny, isn't it?" she says somewhere over your head while you stare at the golden carpet between your feet. "All these years and it never ceases to surprise me. David's not half as bad anymore, though. When we were still in college, he'd get so drunk we couldn't understand half the shhhtuff that would come out of his mouth."

"You needn't curb your swearing on my account, dear, I'm not some ninety-year old crone."

"You're still a respectable older lady, we can't go around swearin' up storms and what not. Unconscionable."

She laughs, a soft _hoo hoo_ , and your breath hitches, leg shaking, if possible, even harder.

“Dirk,” Roxanne murmurs, touching the middle of your back.

You’re bent in half, don’t remember moving at all. “I’m okay,” you lie, poorly.

“Oh dear, perhaps we shouldn’t have made him come all this way.”

“No, Jane - Ms. Egbert, please.”

 _Egbert_.

Yeah, that’s. Egbert sounds.

“That’s right,” you murmur, lick your lips. Pop your knuckles. Of course. That’s right.

“Oh, shit, Dirk, are you -”

You throw up on the rug.

“Oh my fucking god,” Ms. Egbert says, and it’s not a laugh that comes out of her mouth, but it does out of yours.

“Language,” you rasp, and then you keel over sideways in your chair.

 

Here is what you dream: fingers frozen stiff, almost numb, desperate as they grapple, as they

curve around a blade, ten years old, watching something red form in the distance, the mechanical whir of wings, and you

frown as you widen your stance, low to the ground in the back of an alley, blade tucked in tight to your dominant side, high, this ain't golf, and you shift, drag your feet back, soles almost worn through, scraping concrete like

 knees bloodied on the pavement of a roof, sun bearing down on your back, barely old enough to reach the crawl space, back then, you used to stand on a chair, didn't you, but you had to reach, it's where you kept

most of your clothes, no need for a dresser that way, no need to clutter the space, no bedroom, not anymore, because kids need rooms and 

the bust blocking the doorway meant you could never use the hall closet for storage, meant climbing in through the window to reach the kitchen, mean climbing hand over foot to the roof, meant days hungry when you were a kid, when you didn’t understand, when you 

weren’t making enough progress, back hitting hard against the cracked earth, rocks digging into your spine, forcing air from your lips, like 

dying, like

drowning, like

gasping as you come back to life, clawing at your throat, gagging and spitting blood, dragging in air through a cut windpipe, but you’re not dead, are you, of course you aren’t, you’re alive because

this 

isn’t 

your,

“Seriously? Again?”

You know who it’ll be before you see him, as you push yourself up and separate, as your clothes blur and become your own, as your polo settles against your skin, blotched with blood, hands in your gloves, or - no, no gloves, not anymore, or, or not yet?

The kid stands slowly, body first, then his head, picks it up and fixes his hair with an idle hand, glaring at you through shades.

You're both wearing shades.

Of course you are, sharp things, triangle-pointed, why wouldn't you be?

You don't remember why that makes sense.

You swallow, lick your lips, and try not to look just - absolutely repulsed by the way he cradles his head like a football. “Is this strictly necessary?” you ask, because you figure, maybe he can just go away and leave you to your dramatic bullshit, like always. You'd almost rather die again than stare at your own decapitated head.

You suppose it's fascinating, to a point. Not an opportunity a lot of people get.

“No,” his head snorts, mouth a thin, unimpressed line. He can't be more than twenty, you don't think, no lines on the face, freckles still dotting his nose. “Obviously not. Quite frankly I've yet to meet one other person who has to put up with this shit to the same degree. At least - not anymore. If you're asking if this is intentional, the answer is un-fucking-fortunately, no."

"Cool," you say. You don't remember ever being able to move freely throughout a dream, and the scenery shifts from what looks like a giant lily pad to a familiar rooftop in Hous - New Houston?

"That all you have to say?" he asks, lifts an eyebrow. In the bright summer sun his hair reflects platinum, and you don't comment on the corniness of his pantaloons because honestly? In a dream? Why the fuck not.

You shrug. "It ain't like I'm used to dreaming at all, if you wanna get real about it. Usually I just die."

"Yeah," he says, like that makes sense. "Guess that's not really off the mark. Not to say it  _has_ to be the starting point, of course, but common memories make for a stronger shared experience."

You stare.

"There's no way the lack of oxygen has truly left you dumber than me," he says.

"Just trying to figure out which sci-fi novel you're pulling this from," you say.

"Guess I do have a tendency towards not saying exactly what I mean. Or used to, anyway. No more dream bubbles, dawg. Just poorly patterned fractals of paradox space, trying to squeeze us in to fill the cracks. We’re practically caulk for the fucked up universe, at this point.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean,” you sigh, and you’re asleep, but you are so suddenly exhausted.

"It means we're part of a broken system, and with our dreamselves dead, or part of us, if that's your gambit, there's nowhere left for the mind to go." His shoulders shrug and it's unsettling, sends up a tiny fountain of blood like the world's saddest party popper. "There are exploitative loops, however, between this reality and all others, and they are - unfortunately, in this case, for me - intrinsically linked. No bubbles? Fill the space where another you, but sideways, died. Simple as pie. At least til you wake up."

You frown, feel it pull hard at your mouth. "Quantum immortality? Really?"

"Hey, don't hate the player, hate the game."

You feel something of another headache coming on, and wonder, perhaps somewhat abstractly, if your body is lying on the carpet of a stranger's hotel room, covered in vomit.

How embarrassing.

You don't remember taking anything last night, but you haven't had a hangover this bad since college, if that  _is_ the case.

Maybe you're just coming down with the flu.

Be about time, you haven't been sick since childhood.

The scene shifts again, as dreams do, the sun lowering with the ease of a rickety old elevator, pushing against your memory as it curls around you, feet so suddenly bare and wet, standing and staring out at the ocean thinking, 

It's just a dream, they're only dreams.

"There's no such thing," he says, but there's something almost kind in his voice as he comes to stand beside you. "I haven't been here before. I'm impressed you managed it at all."

"Wouldn't be my first pick," your murmur, think about the nights you'd spend here alone.

"No, guess not," he sighs. "Ocean ain't really been my scene in years, either."

You hum, regard this other you, but sideways, calm as can be, draped in pink and purple with a cute little heart on his shirt.

Or not cute, really, because you'd recognize the symbol for the church of Heart anywhere.

"Any way I can opt out of the free trial," is what you say, trying not to stare. Failing.

"Unfortunately, no," he sighs. "I'll be honest, this ain't my first rodeo, and far as I can tell, this train don't make no stops."

This is becoming the most complicated fucking dream of your shitty adult life.

"It's not often I get a splinter, however," he adds, somewhat thoughtfully. You step back out of the surf and watch the sky turn brilliant green, feet planting themselves on a concrete rooftop, like nothing ever changed. "No offense or anything, but if that is the case, I'd appreciate you leaving me the hell alone." You'd recognize the lack of kindness, the aggravation and borderline cruelty in your own words, anywhere. "Not that this ain't fascinating, but it is my dream, and I don't get a lot of alone time to start with, so."

"I don't know what that means," you confess, shrugging helplessly. If you could stop having these fucked up nightmares (and are they nightmares if they're the only dreams you've ever had, the only ones you've ever remembered), you would. And if he really was you, he would know that.

His head stares and then his hands lift it, settle it on his shoulders. He gains some height, and you realize that he's easily as tall as you. "How unusual. Most splinters are at least self-aware enough to be a shithead to me on sight."

You shrug again. "I don't see the point in arguing with my own reflection."

"Ouch," he says dryly, and when he tilts his head, his neck still oozes blood. "I am curious as to how you got here, then. We can't exactly play 'there can only be one' when there are, in fact, several, but. Paradox space ain't usually too keen on doubles, and far as I can tell, if you ain't a player, you shouldn't be dreaming at all."

"I don't know what that means, either," you grouse. "I didn't ask for the tagalong, and I certainly didn't fuckin' ask for whatever backwards ass nightmare shit this will end up being for the next thirty whatever years til I kick it."

"Jesus Christ, this is ridiculous," he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

This causes you pause.

Or at least as much pause as a dream can give.

"Who is that," you demand. You are aware, to a point, that you sound insane, and his face makes it clear he agrees. "I keep - its like I can't stop saying it, dropping that shit into conversation like it's got any right to be there, and it's really startin' to drive me up the wall. If I say it one more time in public I'm pretty sure Rox is gonna call a hospital."

The Dirk who isn't you raises his eyebrows slowly, elevator going up. "Oh shit," he says. "You really are him."

"Uh," you say, flexing your fingers, long gone cold.

"Holy shit," he breathes, striding forward and grabbing you by the chin.

You wrap your entire hand around his wrist, think how easily you could snap it, how fragile he really is, too young, you were still so fucking young, and you feel ice settle in your veins. "Don't fucking touch me," you say.

He isn't bothered, and it's sheer curiosity that lets him tilt your chin. The pads of his fingers are rough like yours, and brow furrowed, you think about being twenty, too broad shoulders and thin in the wrists. "This seems improbable," he tells you.

"The fact that I haven't fuckin' snapped your neck is improbable," you grunt. 

"I said improbable, not Earth shattering," he says, stepping back. "Besides, already a bit late for that, aren't you?" As of to demonstrate, he lifts up his head an inch before letting it drop back down with a wet, solid thunk.

You don't wince, but can't fathom why. "You're disgusting."

"We're both disgusting," he shrugs, circling around you, once, then again  "Fuck, I really should have noticed sooner. You've even got the scar."

You pop one of your knuckles idly and feel nothing. You're seconds away from melting through the floor, all at once. "You ain't really me," you say. Not a question.

"I am," he says simply. "In the same way that no, I am not. At least not the way you perceive us to be."

"Somehow that makes it worse," you say, not without humor.

His smile, when he finally gives it to you, is lemon bitter. "I never wanted to meet you, before. I'm beginning to wonder now if that was a mistake on my part."

And before you can respond, you drop heavy onto your back, cold blue earth, sky above in swirling grey.

There's a space in your chest, just below your heart, and it flares with pain, sharp, stringing, air flowing out of your lungs, and when you wake up, again,

again,

again,

all you can say is "What the fuck?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little finger guns  
> One day I'll let this poor man nap in peace  
> Probably WON'T be another month before an update haha sorry I'm so sorry


	8. pallet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's almost like time stands still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IT WAS LIKE TWO MONTHS OH NOOOOOOOOOO  
> I'm so sorry!!! This chapter is tiny! But it had to be in order to make way for uhhh stuff!  
> And also, because it kinda belongs on the tail of the last chapter haha

You wake with a rattling gasp, so harsh you almost gag, and when a hand touches your shoulder you flinch so fast you reach for a deck you no longer have, an empty spot in the back of your mind that you feel, for the first time, like a hole in the head.

“Easy, son,” comes a light voice, some vague mash of unfamiliar and something you think you should know, and when you do move, shrug the hand away in the same movement, you see -

“You’re not Harley,” you say, like an accusation.

There’s that god awful mustache, right where it should be, but the eyes behind the horn-rimmed specs are shining blue, crinkle at the corners like -

Like something you’ve forgotten.

“Nope!” he says, warm brown face lighting up. “Thank the gods, am I right? How awful would that be?”

You realize, as Jane Egbert comes around the side of the couch, that he’s familiar because holy fucking shit, that’s John goddamn _Crocker_.

“John, don’t be mean,” Egbert scolds as she drops down to a knee carefully. When she turns her eyes on you, it takes a lot of energy not to cringe back. The raise of her eyebrows, the slant of her mouth, kind, something that might be playful, in better context. “Are you alright? You took quite the spill, there. We weren’t sure if you hit your head!”

“Yeah,” you say, and your mind races in beats of threes and fours, but you drag yourself upright, legs no longer set to bow beneath you. “I’m - fuck, how long was I out?”

You’ve completely lost track of time, try to remember when you got here, what you were doing before you -

“Five minutes, maybe?” Roxanne says. She’s holding a glass of water from the kitchen and she offers it to you. “Seriously, Strider, you scared the shit outta me!”

You stare, remember her at sixteen, remember her hungover at three notches under thirty, and you are struck by a great discomfort, surrounded on all sides by people so determined to help you, it almost makes you physically ill.

“I’m fine,” you say mechanically, rolling your shoulders and tipping your head til it cracks. It does nothing to soothe the headache, but the sound, at least, is satisfying.

“You should sit a spell,” English says, and you hadn’t seen her before, wave her off now.

“I’m fine,” you repeat. You just want to go.

Rox’s hand on your arm almost makes you flinch, and you leer warning at her. “Jane came all the way from Sealight,” she says instead, but there’s determination in her gaze, the hard set of her jaw. “To see the Doc, and to take in the sights. Isn’t that cool?”

You do take pause at that, whether or not her intent was to stall you. “That’s in - Washington,” you say thoughtfully, memories dragged to the forefront in a scramble. “The, the old human kingdom, yeah?”

She beams. “It hasn’t been called that in a long, long time, and for good reason, but I quite imagine you would like it there, were you inclined to visit.”

“Yeah, I always -”

Hair curled around the ears, a mother’s smile, carved in jade. Dirt under your nails, flowers placed at the feet of a god who would never see them.

Your head pounds to the beat of your heart, 4-4 time until it roars in your ears.

You don’t take the water. Just pivot your feet and walk towards the door.

“Dirk,” Roxy begs.

“Not this time,” you say, give an absent wave.

There are days where your life feels like a divine joke.

Where the cruelty of your childhood folds over into the unpleasantness of your adulthood, the apathy so deeply ingrained into your skin that you walk forward for no reason other than the idea of going back repulses you.

There is no true measure of comedy or horror that can describe the way you feel when you swing that hotel door open and find David Lalonde waiting for you on the other side.

The fact that you both say, “Uh,” before you slam it closed will haunt you for the rest of your days.

“Oh my gods,” Roxanne says.

“Was that Dave?” is what Crocker says, sounds somewhere stuck between amused and mystified.

You don’t really care, though, because all you can think about now is, “How the FUCK do I get out of here?”

There’s the windows, you think immediately, and nearly laugh for it.

From this height, if you fell you’d be vaporized.

That might be an improvement.

If you ever needed a lift from a flying college student, today would be that day.

“No one’s jumping out any windows,” Egbert says sternly, as if she can hear you thinking, and you think desperately how much you miss your solitude.

“I ain’t sayin’ sorry,” you say to no one, because you’re still kind of frozen there, and because she’s standing between you and the open windows already.

You can’t imagine it’s truly purposeful, but you scowl and she frowns back, puts her hands on her hips. “You aren’t going anywhere like this, mister!”

“I don’t see how you could possibly stop me,” you scoff, but even now, you are searching for exits, don’t find them.

“I’ll just uh, grab the door, then,” Crocker says weakly, and fed up, you go to the far corner and collapse back into a chair.

At least you can hope he won’t see you there, that you can blend into the background and that nothing else could possibly come of this.

“Dirk,” Roxanne tries again, still holding that glass of water.

When you do take it, your fingers brushing hers, you hope she understands how impossible this is for you, how the anger that was barely more than a cherry pit in your stomach has started to grow, to build and coil like a pissed off viper, waiting to strike.

You brace yourself when the door does open, but you refuse to look at him, stare at the wall as Crocker begins to laugh.

“You should see your face,” John says, but he sounds apologetic, gives him a rough pat. “It’s hilarious.”

“John,” Egbert scolds again, but she sighs, too. “I don’t know why I allowed this to take place in my suite at all.”

“Because your brother’s an impossible busybody, obviously,” Dave drawls, and it’s that rude sound from his mouth that’s so familiar to you, none of that Hopywood cheer or fake, static accent. “Ain’t no way in hell he was gonna sit aside and let y’all have all the fun. Crocker has nothin’ better going on without me and we all know it.”

“’Tula would kill you for saying that,” Crocker chides him, snickering.

“And she’d kill _you_ for callin’ her that god awful nickname, so I think we’re about damn even.”

“Hey, her matesprit made it up, so if there’s anyone to blame, I’d reckon it’s him.”

Shoes squeaking across the kitchen flood, the cabinet opening and closing. Your fingers curl into the arm of the chair and you refuse to turn.

“She’d kill you both and you’d deserve it!” Doc English snorts.

“I kinda feel like she’d, I dunno, threaten to drink our blood or some shit first, right? That’s her thing, isn’t it?”

“Um, no,” Crocker laughs. “You’re thinking about her niece, maybe.”

“Trolls don’t have nieces or nephews, dunkass.”

“Well fuck if I know shit about trolls, Strider, I just play on her goddamn show.”

“It’s Lalonde and we both know it, John, you ass,” Dave grunts. The sound of a glass set down heavy on the table. You press your lips together and do not laugh.

There is some kind of familiarity to this, listening to them interact, and it rolls over your nerves, leaves you a confusing mix of stressed and terribly, mortifyingly at ease.

You think you can handle it, and then all at once, you fucking can’t.

You stand without stumbling, to your feet in what feels like a millisecond, not even enough time to blink, but it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Everyone else in the room flinches, and you have a moment where you feel like a child again, flex your hands at your sides as all the eyes in the room come to rest on you.

And there’s Dave, same as he’s ever been, a bruise beginning to form along the edge of his jaw, hair in its perfect disarray.

He doesn’t seem to know what to say to you, either, flounders, finally chokes out, “Dirk.”

“I was just leaving,” you say, voice hollow, disinterested and uncomfortable.

“No,” he says desperately, moves around the kitchen counter towards you, hands up, placating. “Look, I wanted to - I’m sorry,” he blurts.

You stare.

He stares back.

You wait.

He opens his mouth, closes it. “You still got a mean left hook,” he offers.

“I’m leaving,” you say again, and you’re at the door before anyone can stop you, three voices of protest behind your back.

“Wait -”

“Dirk -”

“Strider, you can’t -”

But you’re already gone, feet faster now than you’ve moved them before, and the door slams closed behind you before you can breathe again.

There are days where your life feels like an inconvenient cosmic joke, and you think this again, when you enter the elevator, and the doors only move to close at what can only be described as fucking snail’s pace.

On a normal day, this would be fine.

But not today, not with David Lalonde crashing shoulder first into you right before the doors slide closed, and you both fall to the floor in a pile of limbs.

“Jesus fucking -” you choke out, shoving him off you.

“Christ,” he finishes in a gasp, head flopping back into the wall before he curls forward with another curse.

Heh.

Idiot.

He takes a minute to press tenderly at his head, as if checking for damage, before rolling to look at you, offering a sloppy grin. “Sorry. That was kind of an insane idea on my part, I admit.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you say, and so sue you if you sound hysterical, if you aren’t in any hurry to push yourself to your feet.

The elevator, mysteriously, does not seem to be moving.

You’re not really sure what to do about that.

“I’m not, unfortunately,” David sighs, shoulders dropping. He coughs, rubs his shoulder. “Dude, are you made of fucking rocks? That hurt like a bitch.”

You don’t say anything at all, just adjust until you can reach the panel and hit the lobby button. It slowly begins to glow red, but nothing changes.  
  
You hit it again.

The doors stay shut, and the elevator stands still.

You listen for the mechanical groan of tech in progress and are greeted with silence.

Great.

“Did you break the elevator?” Dave asks incredulously. You shoot him a withering glare and he holds his hands up. “Okay, okay, sorry. Probably my bad, then?”

He’s still got the scar in the center of his palm, a line that drags from his thumb to his pinkie, and you feel a pang somewhere deep in your chest.

Squash that down.

You let your head drop back slowly, careful, and stare up at the ceiling, the mirrors reflecting your tired ass expression back down at you. “What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t want you to go,” he admits softly. “I mean, I - you weren’t ever gonna call me, were you? So I didn’t want this to be -”

You snort. “Please. As if you’d lose sleep over it.”

“I DID,” he snaps, and you almost like him better like that, the slant of his eyebrows, furrowed in the middle, how you can almost hear his teeth squeak together. "And the fact that you don't believe me ain't much of a surprise, is it, comin' from the biggest fucking hypocrite this side'a the Mississippi."

“See you’ve got just as bad of a temper as you always have,” you say, just to be an ass. “Kinda surprised, actually. Guess some things never change.”

“Dirk,” he says, but you have to watch him sag again, all the fight out of him all at once, and you aren’t surprised to find that you don’t feel particularly guilty.

“Dave,” you say petulantly.

A moment of tense silence rests there, where the right words belong, as though neither of you can find them.

Or maybe you don’t want to.

Maybe you don't know how to talk to people anymore, or at least not who he is now.

Not who you are now.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says finally, when it’s been just long enough that he needs to hear himself talk.

You’re being a little cruel about that, actually.

He’s always been that way, unable to bear the quiet, a drive to fill the spaces in-between with something, anything.

It used to make you sad.

Maybe it still does.

“I was drunk.” Dave sighs out his nose, leans forward until he folds enough to press his forehead to his knees. “I know that’s a shitty excuse. S’kinda the only one I got though. I mean. Aside from me just.” He flaps his hand idly. “Being me.”

“Kinda never stopped you before,” you admit, don’t offer him a smile. Still, there is something bizarre to this moment between you, stuck in an elevator with someone you had never wanted to see again.

But that’s not true, is it?

It never has been.

“I missed you,” Dave says, like a fucking idiot that he is, and you can’t be blamed for the way you stiffen, how the whole of you freezes over, fury and panic, not confusion but something like -

“I know that sucks. I know it’s a shitty thing to say. But it’s the truth, and I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” you say, because you suddenly can’t look at him. “I know.”

“You were my best friend,” he says softly.

You scoff. “I was your only friend.”

“Well,” he says, but he’s smiling now, a tiny, fragile thing. “Yeah, that too.”

You swallow, sigh out your nose. You want to feel -

something.

You want to feel like -

You just want to go back to

And it isn’t fair that -

“I’m sorry I punched you in front of the pap,” you say instead. “I could’ve waited until we were somewhere more private.”

“Private, eh, Mr. Strider?” he says, a grin beginning to crawl across his face. He wiggles his eyebrows at you. “How absolutely fuckin’ scandalous of you to even suggest. Can you imagine if I’d tried to corner you in the bathroom? We’d be screwed.”

“I’m beginning to think right here is pretty fuckin’ private, actually,” you say dryly, and he just laughs.

It’s almost enough like a proper memory that you fight a smile.

“Can I have your number?” he blurts suddenly, and when you look at him, eyebrows up, his ears turn pink. “Look, I know you - hate me, and maybe I deserve that? I definitely do. I did some shit, okay, when we were younger, and you’re valid as fuck. But -”

“I never hated you,” you murmur, but it might be a lie, and you’d have no way to tell. There is a part of you, so childish, so deeply hurt but the years that passed, but gods below, you could never hate him, even if you desperately, desperately wanted to. “Listen, dude, it’s been literal years since we’ve even been in the same room together, I don’t think -” You grind your teeth together.

This is lame.

This whole conversation is lame.

It's a bit like slapping a bandaid on a puncture wound.

But you find, despite that, maybe you’re not as miserable as you were before.

“Dave -” you begin, waver.

The door dings loud enough that both of you flinch, and you nearly sigh in relief as it whirs back to life.

“Thank god,” you groan, rub at your eyes.

“I really did think we broke it,” he confesses around a hysterical laugh. “I mean, not to say that I couldn’t pay out of pocket, but Jesus, how embarrassing.”

You’d forgotten, how often he said that.

You don’t think he even notices.

Maybe you never did.

You go to stand and he grabs your hand, wavers when you glare. “Wait,” he says weakly. “Listen, Dirk, if I could, I would take back -”

“Don’t,” you grunt, something almost like cruelty falling from your lips. You pinch the bridge of your nose, fight the burning sensation as it rises again. “Dave, what you said -”

And you realize that despite everything.

Despite how furiously self-centered he is, how annoying it’s been, he’s right, to a point.

“I did miss you,” you say, albeit begrudgingly. “I think you forget, but you were my only friend, too.”

Dave’s mouth slants in a way that’s entirely unfriendly, that shit-eating grin that made all the other kids hate him. “Why Dietrich, are you trying to say we’re best -”

“Don’t push it,” you say, offer him a hand up.

He doesn’t thank you, but you don’t shy away, either, when he takes your phone and punches in his number, hands it back to you with a smile that has only ever belonged to you. “Call me,” he says as he presses it into your palm. “I mean it.”

“Fuck you, you’re not the boss of me,” you say, and you flip him off as you exit the elevator, don’t spare a look back over your shoulder to see him grin.

 

 

You take the bus home, are soaked in sweat by the time your apartment, and the elevator doors have hardly closed behind you before collapse against it, feel that urge to puke come back, feel the burning sensation of your eyes.

You do not cry, but they water uselessly, make you long, maybe not for the first time, for a pair of shades you won’t forget.

“Fuck,” you say to nothing and no one. “Fuck.”

You will have to apologize to Roxy, when you get back up there, when you finally take a moment to register that maybe, just maybe, it’s not really her fault at all.

But it could be, a small part of you whispers, thriving on suspicion, a certain lack of trust necessary to function like a human person. She could have planned it all out, she could have been trying to -

Fuck if you know.

This whole line of thinking is ridiculous, and you strip down as soon as you’ve locked the door behind you, drop onto the futon and stare at the ceiling until you pass out.

You have work tonight, don’t you.

Fuck’s sake.

Why did you even agree to any of this at all.

You wonder, for the first time in awhile, if you really are lonely, after all.

 

For once in your life, you don’t dream about death.

You dream about the ocean.

The feeling is burned into your skull, and you remember what it was like, at thirteen, standing with your feet touching the water, sand creeping in between your toes with the roll of the tide.

 _It's just a dream,_ you thought that first time, sweat sticking your shirt to your skin, shaking in the breeze, still so small back then, so breakable, wiry and thin at the wrists. They're just dreams.

You feel the voice on the wind more than hear it, and it pushes through your hair like a gentle caress.

_You can’t hide here forever._

“I know that,” you say to no one. “Shut up.”

You’re not even really sure where “here” is, beyond the obvious. You crane your head back and follow the line of the sea wall, the stairs that lead back to the family vacation house. The sand stretches into the distance in shades of blue, the distant memory of a summer evening, and you inhale through a nose so suddenly clogged with blood, wipe it away with a wrist still wrapped in a cast.

You press the thumb of your good hand against your middle finger until it pops, and you remember you weren’t yet thirteen the first time you broke your wrist.

You do remember a lunch table, back of the cafeteria.

You remember oversized headphones, bright bright red, like cherries.

Like blood.

_“I didn't say you could sit here.”_

_“I didn’t ask.”_

You remember sitting on the top of a hill, or standing on the edge of a crater, remember handing someone bright red headphones in a plain brown box, remember saying -

_"I know it's a bit early."_

What?

_“Don't drop them, you little shit.”_

What???

_“If you fuck them up this time, I’m not gettin’ you more.”_

But you can’t

remember who it is,

or who it was, that you

or how you

got here.

Sea salt stings your eyes, burns the corners, the powerful urge to scratch, to press into them until all you can see is lights.

Your chest feels fit to burst, feels like drowning, and you almost go willingly to the ground when the sword pierces your sternum, your back hitting hard against earth of cobalt blue.

At least, you think bitterly, it isn’t him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk "no friends" Strider am I right??  
> I have zero promises this time I'm sorry I'm old and also busy I'm so sorry


	9. barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Tuesday, December 3rd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Me again! If you are reading this and have been caught up for awhile, i went back and retroactively edited some weird shit in! Sorry!  
> Standard warnings apply i suppose!  
> Dreams, mostly.....  
> Which gets a little....  
> Yeah

You turn thirty-three on December 3rd and no one knows but you, sitting alone in the back of the convenience store on a stack of boxes.

It's fresh turned midnight and you take a drag off your cigarette as you stare out at the building across the street, the way the light flickers on and off, how it has for the past two weeks now.

It's not cold enough to snow.

You don't expect it to be, but you're bundled up in your jacket anyway, foot shaking idly. It'll be warm by the time you leave work, you know, but for now, you keep your arms tucked in close, and your hat pulled down snug.

You check your phone, but Damara hasn't texted you to come back in yet, so you give yourself another five, wonder if it would be in poor taste to actually text Dave, wish him an early one.

He'd be awake, at least.

You never did call him, never did plan to, but his incessant texting is enough that, from time to time, you're willing to cave into it.

If only to tell him to shut the fuck up.

You're not really ready to be friends again, not by a long shot, but you can see that he wants to be, and as bizarre as the sensation is, you tolerate it.

You didn't turn Roxy down, when she walked back into your life.

How could you not extend the same tepid treatment to,

Well.

It's been a hot minute, you think, bordering on amused, since you've had friends.

Real friends.

Maybe you're trying to give it a shot.

"So, hey -"

Here's the thing about gods.

You ain't holding anything against a dude who can travel throughout, to your knowledge, the entire expanse of humanity's history, but the dude could, in your humble fuckin' opinion, give you a bit more goddamn warning.

You stop short of crushing your cigarette between your fingers if only because hey, it's your fucking birthday, you're not looking to get burned, and turn your head just enough to give him a scathing look. "Think you're clever, now?"

It's been awhile now, since you've seen Dave, this Dave, still the same, far as you know, emblazoned red symbol and lips now sheepishly pressed together.

Fuck, you haven't seen him since -

"I wasn't trying to avoid you," he protests, despite the fact that you haven't said anything, so you sit back, watch him as he starts to do something weird with his hands, settles for wedging them in his pockets. Didn't know his pants had pockets. How novel. "Just had like, idk, shit to do, I guess. God stuff. Or domestic stuff. Like, life and all that."

"Domestic," you say carefully, and maybe it's because you're feeling relaxed, a quiet evening with almost no visitors, or maybe you've grown fond of this little god, but you take a very long moment to mask a very small smile.

"Hey, guy's gotta live somewhere, don't I?" He shrugs. "Moved into a new apartment with - my brother. I guess. It's kind of weird right now. I've never had to pick out furniture before."

You hadn't considered that before. You guess anything with a corporeal form probably needs a place to rest their head.

Doesn't make it any less amusing.

"Why don't you just buy it on Spamazon?" you ask, chin in hand now, fingers curled to prevent the uptick of your mouth.

"Where I lived before, it was - I didn't really do the decor," he says lamely. "Someone else did. And I'd let him again, but they're both pretty insistent that I actually contribute." Obsidian shades in the middle of the night means that to get his point across, the kid performs almost a full body eye-roll. "Dunno why they even care, honestly, all three of us have pretty abysmal tastes, and we're gonna argue about it no matter what. I'm the dude with the least to lose here. No human dignity left in this vessel, I'm just here to play Wii sports and avoid doing the dishes. I couldn't give less of a shit how many cushions our couch does or does not have."

You're pretty impressed that he doesn't seem to need to breathe in between sentences.

And then you think about it.

"You have a brother?" Not exactly a polite way to ask, but you think he'll ignore it, anyway.

Seems to be what he's good at.

To your amusement, this makes him cringe full-body, and you spare a moment to wonder if that's cruel of you.

You decide it's certainly not very fucking nice, and you swear you'll do better next time.

You watch him hem and haw over answering, feet shifting, same beat up black shoes, scuffing the gravel, cape swishing behind him in a one-two step. The halo of his hair, bleached eery white in the street lamp, how the light never seems to catch the rim of his shades.

You missed this, you think. The bits of him that are so unsettlingly inhuman, how he's so close to you, but just far enough that you couldn't reach to touch.

How fucked up is it, you think, that you're so much more comfortable in the presence of a god than you've ever been around anyone moderately more... human.

Or troll, anyway, since you've always gotten along better with them.

"Well it's kind of like - I mean we're not - yes," he settles on. "You wouldn't know him. I hope. I mean - okay, I probably didn't - shut up. Yes."

You raise your eyebrows as if to convey, "I didn't say anything." 

He huffs, looks away, out towards the dumpster, the old storage crates.

"Is he nice?" you ask, and that startles what is very nearly a guffaw out of him.

"Dude, what??"

"Your brother," you clarify, offer a shrug. "I was an only child, growing up. Reckon maybe gods don't actually grow, but the sentiment, I figure, must be similar."

"We grow," he mumbles, but he seems so suddenly self-conscious. "When we first - um. When we were younger. I mean, we've always gotten along really well, same shit taste in pretty much everything, but he -"

The way he starts and stops is so awkward, so human, you very nearly pity him.

There's a certain sadness to him here, to this kid, with a cape so long it nearly touches the pavement, his hands wringing together with the nervous kind of tension you only ever see in a kid who feels like he's done something wrong.

"I think he has a harder time on his own than he's willing to admit," Dave settles on, but you feel that there's significance in the way he looks at you.

You take the final drag before crushing the remains of your cig under your foot. You aren't dumb enough to miss the way he pauses at that, and you get the sensation again, that feeling that he wants - expects - something from you, but you can't tell what.

"It sounds like you care about him," you say instead of drilling him for more. "That's more than most people get."

"He had a harder time with his powers than I did," he shrugs, but he's staring like he's daring you to comment. "Figure it's the least I can do. And besides, this is the era he wanted to settle down in. I can't win every fight."

That interests you, too, but demanding more from him seems kind of rude.

Well.

You're nothing if not a man of a very specific brand.

"Where did you live before?" you ask, and it's blatant curiosity now, a kind of burden you bear but can't quite beat back.

"Uh," he says but it's thoughtful. "Is it okay to give it to you in hours? I gotta shot memory for social studies."

"No," you say wryly, an eyebrow cocked.

"It was like," he starts, exasperated. His hands flex, and you watch him count something on one hand, thumb to each fingertip. "Fifth age, maybe? I think. Back when shit was all..." He waves an arm around vaguely. "Separate. Spread out."

"Right," you say, so suddenly clear on exactly what he fuckin' means.

You remember burning hot dirt and desert scrub, lying on the floor of a motel staring at the ceiling.

"The Grand Anniversary. That was you."

"Yee-up," he says, rocks forward on his feet. "Gonna be real though, made it hard as fucking hell to get anywhere or do anything when we got recognized every five steps. D-- my bro retreated to the consort kingdom pretty quick after that. I think he likes it better here, since everyone's kind of - forgotten, I guess." He cracks his knuckles. "About who we used to be, I mean."

"Sure," you say, though you don't really understand at all, perhaps never will. "Guess you must've been celebrities back then, huh? I should say thanks. Got us out of school for a week like twice a year."

That makes him snort, a small breathy laugh that doesn't quite suit him. "Shit, yeah, they still got parades and stuff, don't they?"

"Mmhm," you hum, carefully don't laugh as he coughs softly, seems embarrassed. "You ever visit them?"

He stares. "What?"

"The parades." You wave a hand around, something like a mockery, reach to fish another smoke free from your pack. If you're taking a long break, may as well make it worthwhile. "Your temples, all that bananas nonsense."

"It's not nonsense," he huffs. Winces. "Okay, it actually feels like a bunch of nonsense. But it's kind of - yeah, sometimes. I try to steer clear, honestly. Time sounds cool as an abstract theory, but quite frankly it gets kinda morbid when you really deconstruct that shit. Just get all up in there, take a look around and say, 'oh fuck these are all allegories about death, aren't they?' You know what I mean?"

You just shrug. “I never put much stock in any of you at all. So I ain’t got much of an opinion.”

“But now you know we’re real,” he says.

“Now I know you’re real,” you say on an exhalation, blow smoke into the cool air and watch it coil up and away with a breeze.

You think about the first time you saw him. How lonely it felt.

You think about the goddess of the sun, the way she looked at you with eyes just a touch too cruel to be a human.

You think about your dreams on the hotel floor. How all his words blur in your mind when you try to remember, that what really comes to the forefront is the his head, tucked so carefully against his side like a football.

How he looked,

Just like you.

You’ve been trying desperately not to, but it comes back to you fairly often, like a bad dream you can’t quite shake.

There’s something so... off. About those dreams you had, like nothing you've ever felt before. Watching something play out so viscerally, with so much anger and despair, in ways you've never felt before.

You’ve been enjoying this November's silence, truly, how everything had gone back to normal (as normal as things got with you) after Roxy went back to New York.

No drama, no gods.

Just work and sleep, sleep and more work.

You can hardly tell him that, can hardly say, “My life is easier when you’re not around,” because it’s rude, and because there’s a piece of you that doesn’t want to chase him away.

You finally look at him after a beat, and this time, you do offer a smile, feel the way it tightens at the corners of your mouth. “Not sure an informed opinion is necessarily better.”

“No,” he concedes, and you note how he doesn’t sit down, how he’s so vastly uncomfortable, but how he just keeps.

_Doing this._

You wonder why.

You wonder, again, _“Why me?”_

“So,” he hedges again, when it’s been a moment and you’re both quiet. You aren’t necessarily surprised that he’s like your own Dave, in that respect. “I did actually kinda have a point about all this.”

“Did you?” You raise an eyebrow, try not to sound too unimpressed. It ain’t really his fault, and you can be polite, at least. If nothing else.

“It’s your birthday,” he says, and it sounds so simple, a statement of fact, with some kind of importance you don’t quite grasp.

“Yeah,” you say, don’t know why you’re surprised. “Guess you would know that, huh?”

“Guess so,” he shrugs. “I never really - Uh. I mean, we do still do birthdays and shit together, sometimes. John’s not a huge fan, but I think that’ll be different now, given how shit’s been changing, and - well. I dunno. You’re just alone. I thought maybe you’d want someone to - to say it. To you.”

“Say it’s my birthday?” You can’t help the incredulous raise of your brows, nor the way you stare at him, try to puzzle exactly what the fuck he’s trying to say. “Am I supposed to know who John is?”

“No,” he groans, wipes both hands down his face. “I didn’t mean to - listen, douchebag, I’m trying to say happy birthday, alright? Is that fuckin’ obvious, here?”

“Not really,” you say, but you stutter a breath out your nose, watching him kick his feet against the gravel again. “I’d say thanks, but it’s not really a big deal.”

“Why not?” he asks, petulant.

You tip your head back towards the store. “I’m working. ‘Sides, it’s just another day, isn’t it? Who cares?”

“Someone probably does,” he mumbles, shrugging. “It’s - they’re supposed to be important, aren’t they? Birthdays.”

You remember David’s face on your shared birthday, horror written in the lines of his face, your embarrassment and exasperation. You remember Roxanne busting open your student records just to surprise you, almost giving her an impromptu haircut when she tried to break into your dorm room.

You remember being sixteen, leaving home for the first time.

“Not for me,” you say, take a deep drag. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, Damara’s irritation before you even get a chance to reply.

DM: your break is over stupid  
DM: and should have been ten minutes ago  
DM: in case you were curious  
DS: i kinda figured.  
DS: thanks, d  
DM: you arent welcome  
DM: come back inside before you catch cold  
DM: thats what happens to humans right  
DS: something like that, yeah.  
DS: gimme thirty seconds.  
DM: make it ten

“I gotta get back,” you tell him, push yourself to your feet, try not to take too much note of the way he steps back, hesitation and reluctance. “But, uh.” You clear your throat, crush the rest of your cigarette against the door frame before looking at him. “Thanks. For that.”

“Yeah,” he says weakly, and you see his mouth do an Olympic backflip off the handle trying to make a smile. You are absolutely horrified, but don’t make mention of it. “You’re, uh. Welcome. I guess.”

“Cool,” you say.

The two of you stand there.

Time moves forward.

“Do you wanna come in?” you offer, awkward, straining.

“I should get back before I get in trouble with - y’know.” He shoves his hands back in his pockets, rocks forward on his toes. “But I - I’ll see you around, right? And stuff.”

Your mouth curls up on its own. “I think you’re probably a better judge of that than I am.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, and you feel weird, closing the door behind you, watching his face fall as it clicks shut and you turn away.

Damara is sitting in your chair when you come back around the counter, and she pops bubblegum at you.

"Hey," you say, give a shitty grin. "You pay for that first this time?"

She quirks a brow your way. "Nicotine gum."

"Trying to quit?" You drop your ass on the counter, wriggle back until you're comfortable. It isn't that often that your shifts overlap all that much, and when they do, you rarely need two people, which amounts to one (or both) of you sitting around doing jack shit.

Damara just shrugs. She has never been much of a people's troll. It's kind of your favorite thing about her.

You sit in the silence, listen to the clock tick distantly on the wall, and think about Dave, the little Dave, with his blood red pajamas and opaque black shades.

Think about the troll goddess, Time's Handmaiden, and you follow the swooping curve of Damara's horns.

"Hey," you say.

She turns the chair clockwise to look at you again.

"Do you - do you believe in all that shit?" You flip a hand around. "The gods, I mean."

She stares blankly and you think about how much closer to your age she really is, painted red lips and bags under her eyes. Familiar exhaustion, someone who doesn't sleep as much as they should, or at all, perhaps, on a bad day.

You get the feeling both of you have a lot of bad days.

"Why," she asks finally, though it's not particularly venomous, or even that curious at all.

You consider your reply carefully.

Your dreams have been nightmarish since your youth, fractured and misshapen, bits and pieces that slip through the cracks so that by the time you wake, all you remember is that you died.

You still don't know why.

Dave, shifting from foot to foot, cape swinging behind him.

" _We aren't really the gods of this world."_

"Guess it's just something I've been thinking 'bout."

It's not a lie, but it sure as hell ain't the whole truth.

She squints at you, and you try not to think about how you never feel as weird or uncomfortable under her red-eyed gaze as you probably should. "Do you?"

You stare back, at her long hair all wrapped into a perfect bun, the way the loose strands curl around her face, unruly, wild, and you think, "You're lost."

"I think," you start.

It was so much easier when he was just some random college kid who was stalking you.

"I've been figurin' some stuff out lately. Reckon I don't really know what to believe. Fucked up as that is."

Damara watches you carefully, only pops her gum once. "Strider," she says, and it is patient, though not entirely friendly, and you expect her to dismiss you. She doesn't look away, opens her mouth, furrows her brow, and then reaches back into the cabinet and fishes free a pack of smokes without looking, pressing them into your hand before you can protest. "It's your wriggling day, is it not? Take them."

You frown. "D, I ain't gonna -"

"I'll pay," she snaps, smacks your hands sharply when you try to reach around her to put them back. "Keep that shit. You'll need it."

You scoff, but take a long moment to put them in our sylladex, full tech-hop modus, and she wrinkles her nose and mumbles, " _Humans_ ," under her breath.

  
"You don't need to believe in something for it to be real," is all she says to you as you're leaving, face blank and voice even.

You blink.

She doesn't.

"Yeah," you say, but you're tired, you've been up all night, and you turn away with the wave of a hand.

  
Walking home, hands in your pockets, a chill lingering in the shade of the tall buildings, you think about how long you've lived in New Houston, how you've never belonged anywhere like you do here, like you were always meant to be, like you needed -

Something.

You're not sure what.

Houston has always had a place for you.

You never bothered to question it.

Roxanne does call you, but it's the incoherent screeching of someone who was up until 3 AM, working on a project, and you're more focused on getting her to hang the fuck up than thanking her at all.

And that's weird, too, you think, rolling through your contacts.

You actually have phone contacts now, when just this past summer you

Well.

You were alone, weren't you?

Before him.

You shoot David a text, "happy birthday" and hope he doesn't take it too far. He might not even remember. You're hardly expecting more than a thanks, and climb the front steps of your building in a quick jogging step.

It's your fucking birthday, and quite frankly all you want to do right now?

Is sleep.

 

  
Your name is

You are

_ Bro? _

Thirty-three years old

_ What? _

on December 3rd, and you shake him awake at a quarter past ten, even though it's a weekday, even though he didn't turn in his homework last night, and you're pushing his

_ His? _

 shades

(Just like yours)

_ Like whose? _

up over his nose before he's even fully conscious.

" _If you can find and smash the piñata in less than fifteen minutes, I'll take you to Olive Garden,"_ you say, and you're being pushed out of the way, feet stomping across the floor as he 

_ He? _

skitters out of the room and down the hall.

Where

Are you?

This is your apartment.

But it's not.

This is where your bed has always been and yet it's

Wrong.

Something is wrong.

There is nothing remarkable about this room, in that it does not surprise you and you cannot, looking around, fathom anything could be out of place.

Just like it should be.

But there's a part of you,

You are confused.

You shift to stand

on the roof of an apartment in Texas, blazing red heat, a sword in hand, so natural, most comfortable thing in the world, and you say 

_"Again."_

You say,

_"C'mon, kiddo, get up. Know you ain't callin' it in already."_

You say,

_"Quit holding it like that, this ain't golf. Get that elbow up."_

And when he

_ He? _

Looks up at you, you can see that he's afraid

Of you.

And you know it.

And you don't care.

And then you

wake up so suddenly you gag, choking on blood - no, spit, and you tip too far and fall out of your bed.

It's Tuesday, December third, and you are soaked in sweat.

 _Who_ , you think absently, sinking down into the carpet, _was that?_

 

 

The choice you make doesn't come to you easily.

Or maybe it does, maybe it's the easiest choice in the world, maybe you should have known it'd come to this eventually, as you ease your truck onto the main road (and thank the fuckin' gods the poor thing's up and running, you have spent far too much time on her to let go now) and down the drag towards the east side of town.

Austin's about a three hour drive to the northwest, if traffic allows it.

But you ain't really got the patience for that.

Nor, do you think, as you skim the turn the last corner of Hemera Blvd, do you need to travel all that way just to visit the church of its patron god.

The church of Heart, on the far edge of town, running along the bisection of Austin (St), Atlantis (Ave), is a lonely structure. The only one of it's kind in the tech district, surrounded on all sides by sleek skyscrapers with windows that reflect back blue sky for miles and miles.

The surface is, in a way, similar to that of the Light Church, that static white, the simplicity. Everything cuts in sharp, clean lines, and something about it feels so achingly familiar it almost frustrates you more.

The statue of the lion-faced god, the denizen monster of Heart lore, is a menacing figure. You are aware, of course, that this church is nearly as old as the Time temple located on the municipal green. You imagine, fingers flaking off some of the old paint, a grisly mix of sunshine yellow and blood red, that there is probably a reason they don't include the denizens often.

Perhaps it's better that way.

You hesitate there at the entrance, follow the line of bloodleaf  that march along the path, stubbornly growing, even as the seasons turn. It isn't as though you have any fuckin' clue what you're doing here.

A hunch, a poorly designed plan fueled by bad dreams and building frustration over empty places where your memory fails you.

It can't possibly work, of course it can't.

But you're already here, aren't you?

  
The temple halls are, to your surprise, shaded in deep, emerald greens, splashes of roiling storm clouds and striking lightning in orange and yellow.

It's disturbing, as much as it is fascinating, and you realize with an ounce of amusement, that you don't really know much about the Prince at all.

You know how he's seen, touching your hand to a sword carved out of marbled granite. A god of order, a man to be pleaded to before going into battle. Cold. Static. More interested in logic than anything like romance.

It's kind of sad, really, if you think about it too much. It used to bother you more as a kid, you remember, following a line of consorts as they waddle down the main corridor, nakking conversationally at each other, stealing looks at you that you can only truly describe as pleased.

Not that THAT ain't fucky as all get out.

You decide not to question it, though, since they ain't really bothering you none, and since they haven't taken a bite out of your leg.

Yet.

The main hall reminds you so much of the Time temple it almost aches, the unbearable silence, how something seems to swallow up all the sound, perfect silence, the muffled sound of tiny footsteps and banners draped across the walls in shades of pink and purple.

You never fully did understand the draw of the Heart.

Maybe that's your own fault.

Some temples have statues, like Life, like the temple of Breath, the kindness so clearly reflected on their faces, something people can look up to.

You have always wondered, staring at the wall if shattered glass, if the mosaics serve to threaten.

You stare up at the fractal pattern, don't squint in the filtered light. A sword through the heart. Obsidian shades in deadly points.

Shades.

You snort.

Brother, right.

You should have known.

"Sight for sore eyes."

Here the thing about gods.

Eventually, you almost expect them to pop up at the worst possible moments. You are fairly certain, given your history, that is just part of your bad luck.

Still, you are as still as you can be, turning in inches, and you're not surprised when you see him standing there, wearing triangle shades and your face beneath them.

You feel like you should be more unnerved.

Instead, you just feel like something is finally falling into place.

“Good to see your head’s back where it belongs,” you say, and if you were anyone else, you’d be impressed by your gall.

When the god of Heart smiles, it is barely a tick north at the edge of his mouth, and it’s more like looking in a mirror than, you imagine, either of you are comfortable with.

You look at his outfit, the simple plum shirt with the simplified heart symbol, carved right through the middle. Black jeans, orange shoes. Hair gelled perfectly into place.

He doesn’t look like a god.

He looks like a kid.

You remind yourself, as he steps forward, around the edge of a pew, that that is how you felt upon meeting Dave for the first time.

Maybe more so now than before, even.

Not sure what that says about you.

“I’m surprised you sought me out,” is what the kid says after a moment, and it’s hard, really, to keep calling him a kid when you can see that he’s as tall as you, that he may be thin in the wrists, shoulders too wide and limbs too stiff, but he’s got to at least be Dave’s age.

_“I’m twenty-one.”_

You’re still not sure you believe him.

You can’t do much but shrug. “Wasn’t really planning on it. Reckon I was just.” Your eyes drift away, up to the glass again. Sword through the heart. It’s almost enough to make you smile. “Curious.” You crane your head back around to see him watching you, and you note he keeps his distance just as well as Dave, if with better posture.

He hums simply, shoves his hands in his pockets. “That. Surprises me.”

You shrug. “Figure I can’t always be a stick in the mud. Gotta make an effort at some point.” You nod down at him. “So what, no pantaloons this time?”

He shrugs back. “Ain’t really a requirement, turns out. We are allowed to change clothes, you know.”

“Someone clearly didn’t tell Dave that,” you say wryly.

You’re certain what he does with his mouth is another smile. “Yes. He’s... fond of them.”

“That’s a word,” you snort.

The whole situation is, admittedly, strained.

You’re not sure what you were expecting.

“Thought you’d stay in Austin,” you say, and his head jerks back around.

“What?” You get a glimpse, for a moment, of someone who isn’t nearly as old as he pretends to be. It’s enough that you fight a smirk.

“Austin,” you say again. “You’re their patron god. Kinda thought it was part of the deal.”

“I’m a god,” he says slowly, with a thin-lipped frown. “To a point, of course, I could understand the place from which this must have sprung, however - that isn't to say that we haven't - I only just now settled on -" He huffs and you do see it now, how Dave could have a brother, how the god of Time might find his match in a conversational partner that rambles perhaps more than strictly fucking necessary. "There’s not really a law sayin’ I belong any which place. Be kinda fucked up if there was.”

You hum at that. Guess he's right, who are you to argue?

And he does remind you, perhaps with a touch of hysteria, of Dave, the kid, the god. Dark eyebrows slanted down, platinum blonde right to the roots.

It should bother you, you think.

It feels, bizarrely, as natural as anything.

Your eyes wander back to the walls so you don't have to look at him, and you wonder if maybe you're just projecting. Maybe it's just how it is, to see the god of Heart - _Souls_ , a small piece of you corrects.

That's right.

The god of Time may be the gatekeeper of death, but the Prince,

Well.

You've all heard the legends.

Emerald green cityscape (tombs, you'll remember later, they're tombs). A sky lit in orange and yellow. Violent. Depressing.

"Why are you here?" he finally asks, and you want to think he sounds petulant, maybe a bit tense.

Can't say you're surprised.

"You're the one wearing my face," you say instead, wander towards the altar, slide a hand along the back or a pew as you take a seat. "Figure you wanted something from me. Or maybe.." You glance up to see he's followed you, and that's definitely a frown now, no mistaking it. "I was getting pretty tired of your shitty dreams."

"That's not my fault," he snaps, fingers curled into the edge of wood so old you hear it creak. "I already told you this shit once, I ain't -" His mouth snaps shut and his face - your face - goes blank, shuts down faster than main street during a holiday parade. "You don't remember."

And you,

Okay so you fucking don't.

So everything about your dreams is fractured, broken apart like shattered glass, until you're left to sort through an endless pile that all amounts to nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

You sigh out your nose, look away again. "Ain't much a surprise, really. There's always been holes. Figure it's the same for most people."

"But you're not most people," he says softly.

You look at him, the god with your face, and you think, was I ever that young? Freckles spattered across the nose, clean-shaven and a straight nose.

And you think, " _Y'all were literally made in our image,"_ and you think, he really is just a fucking kid.

"I'd rather be," you say instead.

He snorts. "Yes, I imagine so."

You don't know what you're supposed to say to that, because the idea that you're even remotely special is laughable.

Then he clears his throat, coughs. "You'd be more tolerable, you know, if you didn't stare so much."

That actually does startle a laugh out of you. "Kid," you start, wipe a hand down your face.

It's your birthday.

It's your birthday and you're sitting on an old wooden pew in a church you don't belong to, staring at the visage of a god who looks too much like you.

He stares down through obsidian shades in the dim light of an empty room, and it's unearthly quiet, the air cracking with unease that the corners.

"It doesn't have to be this way," he says eventually, when you can just barely stand the silence.

"I'm not sure what that means," you sigh, letting your head drop back.

"I know," he says, and then does sink down beside you, on the very edge where he could still flee, if he really wanted to. His foot shakes it is hilariously, heartbreakingly human. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," you tell him, crack your knuckles, left to right. "It's not your fault."

It doesn't surprise you, not really, when he laughs at that.

 

  
Here is what you dream, lying on your side on your futon, hair smushed against the side rail, one arm tucked under your head: somewhere black, somewhere empty, somewhere that crushes in on you from all sides. You inhale and suffocate, you breathe out and choke on blood.

At first, there is nothing.

At first, there is the ghost of a sigh.

And then, there is laughter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreams!  
> Blows kisses to the sky. For my friends, who have put up with me now for months and months... I'm love u
> 
> And now................

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm talking about at any given time


End file.
